
BELL, PHOTOGRAPHER, WMSHINGTON 



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BEAUTIFUL 
WASHINGTON 

BY - 
Colonel JOHN A, JOYCE 



Author 

Checkered Life, Peculiar Poems, Zig-Zag, 

Jewels of Memory, Oliver Goldsmith, 

Complete Poems, Edgar Allan Poe, 

Brickbats and Bouquets, 

Songs, Etc., Etc 



^S«etutj^ ru/es t/io tSer/' anef „^t'ny, 
^9eatfty rve^rts in eueryfAt'nff. 

— JOYCK 



Gibson Bros., Washington, D. C. 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Received 

MAY 9^ 1903 

Copyright Entry 

cuss C^ XXc. No. 

COPY 8. 



^ 



COPYRIGHTED, 1903, 

BY 

COLONEL JOHN A. JOYCE. 



DEDICATION. 

I dedicate this volume to the purity 
and patriotism of the American people, 
whose bravery and blood, for more than 
a century, have cemented the foundation 
stones and structure of the National 
Capital, and solidified forever the Union 
of the great Republic. 

J. A.J. 



PREFACE. 

My object in writing this book is to 
show the world the great natural, his- 
torical, and architectural advantages 
of ¥7ashington City, the most beauti- 
ful capital on the globe ; and although 
Paris and London are fifteen hundred 
years older, the young Republican 
Giant of the West is the superior of 
ancient cities in the promulgation of 
universal education, mechanical and 
scientific invention, commercial prog- 
ress, libert}^ equal rights, and pros- 
perity for all mankind. 

It is my intention to deliver this as 
a lecture through the cities of the 
nation, and present on canvas more 
than a hundred vievv^s of the principal 
sights and scenes of Washington. 

J. A. J. 



Beautiful Washington 

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

The discovery of America by the 
immortal Columbus was the greatest 
event in human history, with the sin- 
gle exception of the birth of Jesus of 
Nazareth. 

Cortez, Pizzaro, Balbao, Velasquez, 
and Magellan, Spanish adventurers 
and conquerors, following the pioneer 
pathway of Columbus, destroyed the 
aborigines of Central and South 
America, and left a trail of fire and 
blood from the everglades of Florida 
to the stormy waters of Patagonia. 

Americus Vespucius, John Cabot, 



8 Beautiful Washington. 

Sir Walter Raleigh, and Captain John 
Smith navigated along the Atlantic 
shores of North America, and brought 
to this Western Continent the strict 
principles of the Puritan and the 
chivalric characteristics of the Cava- 
lier. 

At the dawn of the seventeenth 
century the settlements of James- 
town and Plymouth Town gave very 
poor promise of the rich blessings 
that crown our glorious Republic to- 
day, and w^hile the shores of Chesa- 
peake Bay were lashed with stormy 
waves and fed by the springs of the 
James, Rappahannock, and Potomac, 
they could not chill or kill the indom- 
itable will power of the daring and 
ambitious Caucasian, who for more 
than ten thousand years has mi- 
grated from the sunny plains of the 
Orient to the golden sands of the 



Beautiful Washington. 9 

Occident with the rapid sweep of an 
eagle over the icy wastes of Alpine 
peaks ! 

From the mouth of Chesapeake Bay- 
to the headwaters of the Potomac, 
springing from the crests of the Ap- 
palachian chain of volcanic moun- 
tains, roaming tribes of red men filled 
the forests and lived a liie of peace 
and war along tangled vales and sun- 
kissed cliffs, where the deer, buffalo, 
panther, and bear gave food and rai- 
ment, and where the red bird, turkey, 
and eagle furnished feathers for the 
adornment of these children of Na- 
ture, who could be destroyed by the 
million to retain and preserve the 
wigwam and liberty of their ancestors, 
but would not be enslaved like the 
black man from the Congo or Sierra 
Leone. 

Captain John Smith, in the spring 



lo Beautiful Washington. 

of 1608, with his weather-beaten 
ocean crew, sailed up the Potomac to 
the mouth of the Anacostia, near the 
present site of the Government Ar- 
senal and Navy- Yard, Washington. 
They found the river full of fish, its 
romantic banks blooming with wild 
flowers and fruits, and birds of rarest 
plumage and melodious notes (alas! 
now banished forever by the cruel 
English sparrow) , flitting through this 
new Arcadia like variegated specks of 
shimmering sunshine. 

Captain Smith found bands of In- 
dians, who called themselves Patowo- 
macks. They greeted him kindly 
and traded furs, dried venison, and 
fish for glass beads, gaudy-colored 
calicoes, knives, and tomahawks. 

The waters of the Potomac, Ohio, 
Missouri, Mississippi, and Colorado, 
for ages, had echoed to the war- 



Beautifitl Washington. ii 

whoops of the roaming red man ; and 
even thousands of years before his 
advent on this continent the Mound 
Builders and Mayas of Yucatan — im- 
placable enemies — lived, loved, fought, 
and died, leaving unnumbered re- 
mains under the hillsides and banks 
of these grand rolling rivers. 

To-day only a torn remnant of the 
red man remains, and in a few short 
years he will be as extinct as the vast 
herds of bison that roamed over the 
plains and mountains of Columbia. 

As a race they have vanished from 
the land, and long ago saw their doom 
in the red colors of the setting sun. 
Powhatan, King Philip, Black Hawk, 
Osceola, Red Cloud, and Sitting Bull 
have gone to the "Happy Hunting 
Grounds," to rest in peace with the 
Great Spirit. 

There is nothing constant but 



12 BeauHftil Washington. 

change. Morning follows night, and 
spring follows winter. Strange and 
unknown are the ways of Providence. 

" God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform; 
He plants his footsteps in the sea, 
And rides upon the storm." 

INFANT WASHINGTON — NATIONAL 
CAPITAL. 

The site of Washington City, two 
hundred and ninety-five years ago, 
was occupied by an Indian village, 
scattered along the vernal windings 
of the Potomac. 

"This is the forest primevaL The mur- 
muring pines and the hemlocks, 

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, 
indistinct in the twilight, . . . 

But where are the hearts that beneath it 

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the 
woodland the voice of the huntsman?" 

A hundred years later, in 1798, the 
archives of this young Republic had 



Beautiful Washington. 13 

been removed from Philadelphia to 
the straggling farm village of the Car- 
rolls, Duddingtons, Beals, and Burns. 
The seventeen original Government 
reservations, consisting of 541 acres, 
were sold by the land proprietors for 
sixty-eight thousand dollars ($68,- 
000). The other day, one lot, 30 by 
150, on Pennsylvania avenue, sold 
for one hundred thousand dollars 
($100,000). 

The assessed value of the Govern- 
ment real estate in the District of 
Columbia, untaxed, is $300,000,000, 
while the total valuation of private 
property, taxed, is $200,000,000, mak- 
ing a grsCnd total valuation of $500,- 
000,000. 

At the beginning of this century 
Washington was tauntingly called 
"The Serbonian Bog;" "a city of 
streets without houses;" "a capital 



14 Beatitiful Washington. 

of miserable huts," and a "city of 
magnificent distances," where the 
croak of the bull-frog and the lone 
cry of the heron echoed back the 
caw of the crow and the shriek of 
the hawk and the eagle. 

Peter the Great and Washington 
established and surveyed the capitals 
named in their honor, and out of 
swamp and woods erected on the 
Neva and Potomac two of the grand- 
est cities in the world, destined for 
a thousand years to rule the nations 
of the globe. 

Russia and the United States com- 
bined possess an internal force of 
rugged manhood that is not equaled 
on earth, and so long as the bear and 
the eagle remain friends the earth 
and the air shall be their undisputed 
dominion ! 

The progress of this city and nation 



Beautiful Washington. 15 

is the most marvelous in human his- 
tory. In the single span of a hundred 
years, only a lifetime, we have ex- 
celled in science, manufacture, litera- 
ture, statesmanship. 

Who can surpass our Franklin, 
Morse, Henry, and Edison in the 
broad field of electricity? 

Who can compete with Fulton, 
Howe, Whitney, McCormick, and 
Professor Bell in mechanics? 

Who can excel for beauty of diction 
and originality of thought Washing- 
ton Irving, Henry W. Longfellow, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar 
Allan Poe? 

In statecraft Washington, Hamil- 
ton, Paine, Jefferson, Henry Clay, 
and Lincoln excelled and outwitted 
all the diplomats and monarchs of 
Europe; and these illustrious names 
will go ringing down the ages as long 



1 6 Beautiful Washington. 

as Liberty lingers on the earth or stars 
sparkle in their eternal spheres. 

In the last three hundred years the 
world has progressed more than it did 
during the previous three thousand. 

Contrast the small brass cannon, 
three feet long, of Cortez the con- 
queror of Mexico — on exhibition at 
the Washington Navy- Yard — with 
the thirteen-inch rifled cannon, forty 
feet long, being manufactured at the 
great gun establishment, not fifty feet 
away from the Spanish progenitor. 

Compare the New Mexico and Ari- 
zona wooden-wheeled ox-cart with 
the electric automobiles now running 
in Washington and every city of the 
Union. 

Look at the first railroad locomo- 
tive built in the United States, run- 
ning 20 miles an hour, and compare 
it with that magnificent locomotive. 



Beautiful Washington. 17 

No. 999, that runs a hundred miles 
an hour on the New York Central. 

Then gaze on the Indian war canoe 
in the National Museum, that may 
speed seven miles an hour, and con- 
trast it with the great war canoe 
Oregon, that can skim over the ocean 
waves at the rate of thirty miles an 
hour, and grapple and conquer any 
war vessel that monarchy can send 
against us. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, GENERAL 
AND STATESMAN. 

George Washington, the adventur- 
ous surveyor, the daring and dignified 
general, and the pure and lofty states- 
man, was President of the United 
States when the Capital was estab- 
lished in Washington. The Massa- 
chusetts patriots, led by the eloquent 
James Otis, had, long before, de- 



1 8 Beautiful Washington. 

fied the British Government by 
throwing the taxed tea into Boston 
Harbor. The ringing words of Patrick 
Henry: "Give me Libert}^ or give 
me Death!" sounded Hke a fire bell at 
midnight, startling the nations and 
shaking the thrones of the Old AVorld 
with the seismic force of an earth- 
quake ! 

The Declaration of Independence 
had been proclaimed from the towers 
and housetops of Philadelphia, and 
the Liberty Bell and Independence 
Hall, cherished as emblems of our 
freedom, remain yet to cheer our 
children omvard and upward to a 
higher and nobler destiny. 

The Revolutionary War had been 
desperately fought for nearly nine 
years ; the Constitution of the United 
States had been adopted by the thir- 
teen original States, and that glorious 



Beautiful Washington. 19 

and immortal instrument of the 
Creator — Washington — first in war, 
first in peace, and first in the hearts 
of his countrymen, was the living 
vidette of the young Republic, spring- 
ing like Minerva out of the tottering 
and tyrannical head of the Jupiter of 
Monarchy ! 

Washington! Look at him! See 
that noble face and loft}^ brow that 
towers among us like Mount Rainier, 
shining through golden sunsets above 
the crags and hills that nestle at its 
base. 

"Art to his fame no aid has lent; 
His country is his monunient!" 

REGULAR ARMY SOLDIERS' HOME. 

Stand and contemplate w4th me for 
a few moments at the statue of Gen- 
eral Winfield Scott on the heights of 



20 Beautiful Washington. 

the Soldiers' Home for the Regular 
Army, located northeast of the Capi- 
tal. 

The Home was established in 1848, 
just after the Mexican War, from a 
fund of ninety thousand dollars ($90,- 
000), part of a forced levy made on 
the city of Mexico by the hero of 
"Lundy's Lane." 

The principal income of the Home 
is from a tax of twelve and a half 
cents per month, retained from the 
pay of the enlisted men of the Army. 

There are generally about one 
thousand soldiers enjoying the bene- 
fits of Uncle Sam's hospitality, and 
they range in age from nineteen to 
ninety, disabled by long service, sick- 
ness, or wounds. 

The annual expense of the Home is 
about $200,000, and the accumulated 
surplus fund has reached the snug 



Beautiful Washington. 21 

sum of $2,500,000, invested in United 
States bonds. So you see republics 
are not ungrateful, not ours at least ; 
and if we consider the annual pension 
appropriation of $140,000,000, the 
people of the United States may 
congratulate themselves as the most 
generous benefactors on the globe to 
their soldiers. 

And yet, when you stop and seri- 
ously think that were it not for the 
battlefield soldiers, from the Revolu- 
tion of 1776 to the close of our Rebel- 
lion in 1865, we w^ould have no coun- 
try to-day, and the God-given colors 
of "Old Glory" would not flash and 
float over our grand Capitol and 
country. 

It's easy now to talk, criticize, and 
fight battles with yowi pen and mouth, 
but the real " soldier boys" never did 
it that way! We quit fighting at 



2 2 Beautiful Washington. 

Appomattox, and shook hands as 
friends and Americans; the "Boys 
in Blue" and the "Boys in Gray," 
retiring quietly to their homes to live 
in peace as law-abiding citizens. 
Such a sudden disbandment of a 
victorious and conquered army, in 
the spring of 1865 and 1866, melting 
away from the furrows of war to the 
furrows of peace, was never before 
witnessed on the earth; and the 
magnanimity of the victors and the 
loyal acceptance of the imposed con- 
ditions by the vanquished, is un- 
paralleled in history. 

Like dashing ocean spray, 

The "Boys" in "Blue" and "Gray" 

Sank back to lives of peace 

When war had its surcease. 

A GLORIOUS VIEW. 

Gazing from the Soldiers' Home, 
as the slanting beams of evening irra- 



Beautiful Washington. 23 

diate the earth, and the cardinal colors 
of the dying day blend the gloaming 
with the night, you behold the rolling 
hills of the " Old Dominion" lift their 
vernal crests over the rippling waters 
of the upper Potomac. 

The far-off forest trees of Arling- 
ton and Oak Hill nod their eme- 
rald heads to the traveler, while the 
sighing w^inds chant a requiem over 
the soldiers and citizens, encamped 
forever on the upland slopes of Om- 
nipotence. 

Oak Hill entombs the dust of 
many illustrious men. Edwin M. 
Stanton, the great War Secretary, 
and Iron Arm of the Rebellion, rests 
under a granite shaft, not more com- 
pact or firm than the heroic character 
it memorializes. 



24 Beautiful Washington. 

Immortal Stanton, thy name and fame 

shall grow, 
While all our lakes and streams shall flash 

and flow; 
Or while Columbia holds her onward sway, 
And lifts her eyes to greet the God of day. 

Green be your memory and glorious be your 

grave ; 
Forever over mountain crag and wave, 
Your loyal name shall shine as pure and 

bright, 
As stars that glitter in an arctic night. 

The "Boys in Blue" and every Union soul. 
Shall sound your praises while the centuries 

roll; 
And Honor, with unfading flowers of fame. 
Shall twine her tributes round your death- 
less name! 

James G. Blaine, the Plumed 
Knight, rests in this romantic ceme- 
tery, beside the remains of his son 
and daughter, with a small head- 
stone, and no monument to mark the 
lonely spot where sleeps the late edi- 



Beautiful Washington. 25 

tor, author, Senator, and Secretary 
of State. 

Yesterday his name and glory filled 
the hearts of men. To-day he lowly 
lies, scarcely mentioned by the long 
train of devotees that waited on his 
smile; and to-morrow he will be but 
a faded memory, to point a moral or 
adorn a tale. 

" How soon we are forgotten when we are 

gone!" 
Ah! vain, vain all his pomp and his pride; 
Broken-hearted, bereft, disappointed, he 

died, 
And left to the world, but the sound of his 

name, 
The sheen of ambition, the shadow of fame! 

John Howard Payne, author of 
"Home, Sweet Home," has a marble 
monument and bust, erected to his 
memory by the philanthropist, W. 
W. Corcoran. In life Payne was a 
poor, forlorn, wandering Bohemian, 



26 Beautiful Washington. 

often without food, shelter or home; 
and yet his simple words will go 
sounding down the years, when even 
the memory and productions of states- 
men and warriors a^re lost in forgotten 
graves. The man who could not bor- 
row a shilling in life from old friends 
has had erected to his memory a 
costly marble monument; and so, 
for thousands of years, shafts, towers, 
temples, and pyramids have been 
reared, not for the glory of the dead, but 
for the laudation, vanity, and glory of 
the living! "^ 

My own poetic lines may fit this 
special case: 

When I am. dead, let no vain pomp display, 
A surface sorrow o'er my pulseless clay; 
But all the dear old friends I loved in life, 
May shed a tear, console my child and wife ! 
When I am dead, some sage for self-renown, 
May urn my ashes in some park or town; 
And give, v/hen I am cold and lost and dead, 
A marble shaft where once I needed bread! 



Beautiful Washington. 27 

No ! my friends : 

If you have a flower to give me, 
Let me know its sweets to-day; 

Place it not upon my coffin 

When my soul has passed away! 

Poets have been particularly un- 
fortunate in not securing plenty and 
peace in life, and yet when the shad- 
ows of death and time have enveloped 
their frail forms and sensitive souls, 
monuments in marble and bronze lift 
their heads to tell the world of the 
genius that sleeps below. 

The poet's life is crushed by cruel wrong; 
He learns in suffering what he thinks in 
song! 

If Homxr, Dante, Tasso, Burns, 
Keats, Poe, and Payne could, by some 
mysterious power, rise from the grave 
to-day, they would view, no doubt 
with amazement, the fulsome and 
generous tributes received after death 



28 Beautiful Washington. 

as a contrast to the thoughtless neglect 
and poverty endured in life. 

Many a poet, profound or ethereal, 
is like a wandering spirit shot out of 
a celestial sphere into a strange planet 
where his soaring and sensitive nature 
wears out his weary wings battling 
against the sordid creatures that stare 
in wonder at the brilliant colors of his 
plumage. 

Some day he is found dead in a 
little corner of the globe, his bright 
wings folded forever, his lips closed, 
his impulsive, warm heart cold, and 
his classic face furrowed with the 
wrinkles of uncongenial elements that 
have left him a broken wreck on the 
cheerless shores of time. 

Over the cold ashes of the poet the 
world will halt for a moment with 
mournful mien and heave a sigh over 
the grave of buried genius. Yester- 



Beautiful Washington. 29 

day he suffered for sympathy and 
bread ; to-day a funeral train honors 
his memory ; to-morrow a monument 
will point posterity to a prodigy of 
celestial aspirations whose sympa- 
thetic songs will thrill the hearts 
of mankind adown the crowding 
ages! 

CLASSIC ARLINGTON. 

Arlington, the great National Cem- 
etery, holds within her emerald bosom 
seventeen thousand heroic warriors. 
Like an Egyptian queen, in mournful 
majesty, gazing on the eternal waters 
of the Nile, Arlington rears her roman- 
tic head to the sky and bathes her 
feet in the murmuring waters of the 
Potomac. 

The gnarled oak, the cedar, and 
sighing pine echo back the caw of the 
crow and the song of the wild bird, 



30 Beautiful Washington. 

and through the morning sunHght 
and evening twilight the various 
voices of nature chant a requiem 
over the moldering remains of our 
loyal dead. 

This spot is dedicated to heroism. 
Its green sward is the mausoleum of 
patriotic hearts; its dome the bend- 
ing heavens, and its altar candles 
the watching stars of God! 

As the years glide away and com- 
ing centuries usher into life millions 
of human beings, Arlington shall be 
a mecca for the unalterable principles 
of truth, and around its undulating 
vales and green hillocks the spirit of 
love and loyalty shall kneel at the 
vespers of nationality and swing per- 
fumed censers at the holy shrine of 
prayer and patriotism. 

Monuments in marble, granite, and 
bronze lift their modest or preten- 



Beautiful Washington. 31 

tious heads, appealing to the memory 
of those who wander near the lowly 
bed where valor sleeps; but when 
these emblems of love and remem- 
brance shall have passed away and 
crumbled into impalpable dust, the 
truth for which they died shall shine 
out like the rising sun and be as last- 
ing as eternity. 

The home of romance, wealth, and 
slavery has become at last the sepul- 
cher of the dead, and the laughing 
musical voices of the proud past are 
but a memory in the columned man- 
sion of General Robert E. Lee. 

A man of modest worth and sincere mold, 
Who never sold his soul for gain or gold; 
And when the Fates decreed that war 
should cease, 
Surrendered manly and retired in peace ! 

Sheridan of the Army, and Porter 
of the Navy, sleep their last sleep in 



32 Beautiful Washington. 

front of Arlington, and the Stars and 
Stripes, floating from the tall staff, 
throws its glinting shadows over the 
heroes that rest below. 

Long regimental lines of white 
headstones fade away into forest 
vistas, and Sheridan seems to ride 
again down the valley through Win- 
chester to turn retreat into victory. 

Templed unlike the Roman Pan- 
theon or Coliseum, the divinities of 
Arlington are dedicated to lofty patri- 
otism, and its worshipers are a Chris- 
tian people. From its classic porch 
the eye beholds to the east and north, 
across the Potomac, the mansions, 
steeples, and domes of Washington 
and Georgetown Heights, framed in 
by the rolling hills of Maryland. 

To the south and east the eye of 
the traveler may linger on the his- 
toric Long Bridge and Alexandria, 



Beautiful Washington. ^t^ 

and the church where Washington 
worshiped, and the hotel where 
Jackson shot Colonel Ellsworth on 
the loth of May, 1861, and where, in 
turn, Frank Brownell, whom I knew 
intimately, killed Jackson. 

In the dim distance a chain of forts 
and earthworks rear their crumbling 
heads. Thirty years of rains, snows, 
and suns have wrinkled their bald 
brows, yet Dame Nature, with her 
universal kindness, has covered the 
rude scars of war with the daisy, the 
morning-glory, forget-me-not, and 
Virginia creeper. 

The ploughshare of industry has 
leveled down the red ridges of rebel- 
lion, and where once the reveille and 
long roll of battle resounded, the horn 
of the husbandman calls his toilers of 
peace from fields of waving grain and 
golden fruit to the rustic board of 
joy and love. 



34 Beautiful Washington. 

The brave hearts that are stilfed 
forever at Arlington dedicated their 
lives to liberty and immortalized their 
devotion by death. 

Who will care for their loved mounds 
when we are gone? Who will then 
strew roses and plant bright flowers 
in the May time of nature? Other 
patriotic hands of brave men and fair 
women will take up the task of duty, 
and even when all but liberty has 
perished from the earth, the robin 
and the blue bird, the red bird and 
the mocking bird, will warble at sun- 
rise sweet songs over the green sod 
that wraps their sacred clay. Nature 
herself will deck the graves of our 
fallen heroes, and the caressing winds 
of heaven will chant a requiem to 
their memory and kiss the loved spot 
where valor slumbers. 

Thousands of loved soldiers rest in 



Beautiful Washington. 35 

the "Unknown" grave. Here is the 
tomb of 2,111 soldiers whose remains 
were picked up on the battlefields of 
Virginia. Many of the "unknown" 
sleep in a land of strangers, where the 
tears of love cannot moisten the green 
shroud that mantles their ashes. But 
if no kind hand is near to strew sweet 
flowers or loved eye to shed the tear 
of sorrow, there is One that reigns 
among the eternal stars that daily 
floods the "Unknown" grave with 
sunshine and nightly w^aters the bud- 
ding wild flowers with dew^s from 
heaven. 

The known and the "unknown" 
are gone forever — 

No more to battle where muskets rattle, 
And blood flowed free as water from a 
spring; 

At rest forever beside the river — 

The Nation's chalice with its offering. 



36 Beautiful Washington. 

The flag they fought for, the end they 
sought for, 

Shine grandly in the Union of to-day; 
And no false reason or trumped-up treason 

Can from its granite moorings ctit away. 

No sunlight streaming or moonlight beam- 
ing, 
Shall ever shine for those brave hearts 
again ; 
Their race is finished, yet undiminished, 
Their glory triumphs o'er the battle plain. 

Unborn ages on golden pages, 

Shall tell the story of their loyal cause; 
And how they perished for rights they cher- 
ished — 

Defending freedom and her honest laws. 

VALOR NEVER CONQUERED. 

The Confederate Cemetery, for 
many years outside the north wall of 
Arlington, contains the remains of 
two thousand "Boys in Gray" who 
were killed or died in prison or hos- 
pital in and around Washington, and 
they sleep as peacefully as those in- 



Beautiful Washington. 37 

side the National enclosure. No 
word of mine shall ever impeach the 
bravery of the men who fought and 
fell for the sunny South, and died for 
what they deemed to be the right. 
We were brothers of the same mater- 
nal line ; and God grant that hereafter 
we may kneel at the same shrine and 
worship at the same altar of prayer 
and patriotism, upholding "sl govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, 
and for the people !" 

And, my friends, let us honestly 
remember that — 

The grass grows as green o'er the conquered. 

As where the victorious lie ; 
They fell, with a " Yell" for a watchword, 

That taught their proud manhood to die. 

And when victory garlands her heroes, 
Who perished in bloody detail, 

She will not crown the long line of Neroes, 
But the truthful, who struggle and fail! 



38 Beautiful Washington. 

"The Blue and the Gray" sleep 
forever side by side, and no man or 
nation now or hereafter will dare 
doubt the valor of American soldiers. 

" These, in the robings of glory, 

Those, in the gloom of defeat, 
All with the battle-blood gory, 

In the dusk of eternity meet. 
Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the judgment day; 
Under the laurel, the ' Blue,' 

Under the willow, the ' Gray.' 

" No more shall the war cry sever, 

Or the winding river be red. 
They banish our anger forever, 

When they laurel the graves of our dead. 
Under the sod and the dew. 

Waiting the judgment day — 
Love and tears for the ' Blue,' 

Tears and love for the ' Gray.' " 

ALEXANDRIA AND MOUNT VERNON. 

From Arlington step aboard the 
fast electric train along the banks 



Beautiful Washington. 39 

of the Potomac to Alexandria, seven 
miles away. Christ's Church, with its 
shining steeple, is soon in view. It 
is built of brick and was dedicated 
in 1765, ten years before the battle 
of Lexington and Concord. 

Washington worshiped here for 
many years, and was an active mem- 
ber of the vestry. The "First Fam- 
ilies" of Virginia w^ould wait about 
the church door every Sunday morn- 
ing for the good and great George to 
put in an appearance with his loving 
wife Martha, when mutual salutes 
were given and all entered the house 
of worship. 

The pew where Washington sat is 
still used, and thousands of travelers 
have reclined on this relic. 

About forty years ago I met an old 
man whose grandfather, George Jack- 
son, was a personal friend and neigh- 



4© Beautiful Washington. 

bor of Washington. He was in the 
habit of boasting that young George 
Washington could outdance, outrun, 
outwrestle, and outride any of the 
"bloods" of Fairfax County, and was 
a favorite with " the girls," and a field 
champion with "the boys" in the 
rural sports of the day. 

He was stalwart in mind and body ; 
weighed two hundred pounds, stood 
over six feet in his socks, wore a 
number eight hat, twelve-inch boots, 
and had his gloves made to order. 
His wife Martha, with the aid of her 
colored servants, wove on her own 
loom the brown jeans suit he wore 
when sworn in as President of the 
United States. She wore a cloak of 
blue " linsey-w^oolsey " on the same 
occasion, and she didn't have any 
variegated bird wings, tails, or top- 
knots on her bonnet either. 



Beautiful Washington. 41 

Washington was one of those broad- 
gauge, wide-open men, with a high, 
square brow and a great gray eye, 
that looked into the motives and acts 
of his fellows. In fact, he was a born 
leader, and his very presence was a 
command. 

No wonder that King George, Lord 
North, Burgo^me, and Cornwallis 
quailed and surrendered to this lofty 
and liberty-loving ' ' Rebel ! ' ' 

Let us now proceed south over roll- 
ing hills and winding creeks to Mount 
Vernon, the home and last resting 
place of the Father of his Country. 
Here is the old-fashioned. Southern 
home, embowered amid lofty trees, 
encircled by ancient boxwood, trail- 
ing vines, and fragrant flowers — situ- 
ated on a high hill overlooking the 
broad waters of the Potomac, with a 
view from its turret sixteen miles away 
to the Capital of the Republic. 



42 Beautiful Washington. 

Mount Vernon, like Jerusalem and 
Mecca, shall be a central point through 
the ages for the faithful who believe 
in Liberty, Law, and Religion. After 
retiring from the Presidency, Wash- 
ington, with his charming household 
and slaves, lived a life of Arcadian 
bliss, reveling in rural sports, com- 
mingling with admiring neighbors, and 
going to the polls and depositing his 
ballot, like the simplest citizen, for 
the man of his choice. 

Like another Cincinnatus, he left 
the cares of state behind him and 
again put his hands to the plough of 
domestic duty. 

As lord of the soil, with point of the plough, 
He recorded the fruits of the year; 

On the parchment of earth by sweat of his 
brow, 
He toiled with a jolly, good cheer! 

Here is the room and the bed where 
he died, after an overseer and four 



Beautiful Washington. 43 

doctors tried to strengthen and save 
his life by a Hberal "blood letting" — 
at least a quart; and all this ancient 
medical treatment for the cure of 
quinsy. And it was not much of a 
day for bleeding either. But the 
doctors did the best or worst they 
could. 

The present tomb of Washington 
is a modest brick enclosure, contain- 
ing the marble sarcophagus of the 
great man and his wife. Martha 
might have been a typical Grecian or 
Roman matron in the palmy days of 
those renowned republics. 

The "Ladies' Mount Vernon Asso- 
ciation" is now the custodian of the 
estate. It cost $200,000 in i860, and 
has a surplus fund and an income 
sufficient to maintain it in good con- 
dition. 



44 Beautiful Washington. 

POTOMAC SCENERY. 

Let us now embark from Mount 
Vernon by river on the steamer that 
plies between this Mecca of American 
patriotism and Washington City. 

Fort Washington, three miles up 
the Potomac on the Maryland side, 
has been recently remodeled and 
equipped with modem armaments for 
war emergencies; and I'm not giving 
any secrets away by saying to the 
monarchies of Europe that if they 
should ache for a land or water fight. 
Uncle Sam can give them a first- 
class torpedo and dynamite reception 
from Cape Henry and Cape Charles, 
at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, to 
the Washington Arsenal and Navy- 
Yard, where our great guns are manu- 
factured. 

The Arsenal has been a noted spot 



Bemitifiil Washington. 45 

for nearly a hundred years, being 
mainly an artillery camp. It was 
here in the spring of 1865 that Mrs. 
Surra tt, Atzerot, Harold, and Payne 
were executed for the conspiracy and 
assassination of President Lincoln, 
the greatest crime since the murder of 
Caesar. 

There has been a great deal of 
maudlin sentiment expressed about 
the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, but if 
any unbiased person will read the di- 
rect testimony in the case he will 
find absolute proof of her complicity 
in the dastard conspirac}^ 

General Winfield Scott Hancock, 
the hero of Spottsylvania, was presi- 
dent of the court that tried her, and 
Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, the pure 
patriot and loyal statesman, was 
Judge -Advocate, while Andrew John- 
son, of Tennessee, was President of 



46 Beautiful Washington. 

the United States, and could have 
extended clemency if he desired. 

I know of no good reason, however, 
in morals or law, why a female con- 
spirator should not be punished 
equally with the male criminal. Lu- 
cre tia Borgia was as bad as Booth. 

Let us continue, northwest on the 
Potomac, through the draw^ of the 
Long Bridge, built under the admin- 
istration of General Andrew Jackson 
for the purpose of joining the District 
of Columbia with "Old Virginia." 

Could this old bridge speak what a 
tale it could tell of the millions of 
human hearts that beat across its 
creaking timbers, who lived, loved, 
and passed away like the mist of the 
morning. 

The scattering retreat of the Union * 
Army over this bridge, after defeat at 
Bull Run on the 21st of July, 1861, 



Beautiful Washington. 47 

might furnish many thrilHng, pathetic, 
and ludicrous scenes. Stragghng sol- 
diers, political patriots, mercenary 
camp followers, cattle, and mules 
were swept away in a wild rush to the 
rear. 

THE ARMY SUTLER. 

But there was one historic charac- 
ter, the army sutler, and his mule 
team, that halted long enough to dis- 
pose of his stock in trade to the weary 
"Boys in Blue." 

The sutler, if you but knew him, 
was a great patriot in his w^ay — and 
for revenue only. When we ad- 
vanced to "the front," he was always 
in the rear, and when we retired to 
the rear, he was always in front. 

Some years ago Governor Curtin, 
at a Loyal Legion banquet at the 
Arlington Hotel, asked me to im- 



48 Beautiful Washington. 

mortalize this peripatetic army store 
and saloon-keeper in verse, and with 
your permission I'll give a pen pic- 
ture of that benevolent genitis, who 
"would a sutler be, that profits might 
accrue": 

I sing the song of the Sutler, 

Who fought in the battle of life, 
The song of the prize-package "Artist," 

Who never got into the strife. 
Not the song of the jubilant soldier, 

Who never forgot to lay claim 
To the "greenbacks" that stuck in the 
"Jack Pot" 

At the end of a winter-night game. 
But the song of the beautiful Sutler, 

Who traveled in sunshine and rain, 
For the sake of the "Almighty" dollar, 

And whatever else he could gain ; 
And his youth bore no flower on its branches 

But his age was a bright sunny day, 
For the prize that he gloriously grasped at 

Was the cash that he carried av/ay. 
And the work that he did for the army — 

In the rear of the soldiers was seen. 



Beautiful Washington. 49 

Where he set up his crackers and herrings, 

And the smell of the festive sardine, 
That he sold to the boys on a credit, 

Or the clamp of a paymaster's lease; 
And six boxes he gave for five dollars, 

While the rest brought a dollar apiece. 
AVhile the world at large sheds a tear, 

To the hero that may be bereft, 
I drink to the Grand Army Sutler, 

Who never was known to get left ! 
Who rushed to the front when the camp-fires 

Lit up all the hills without fear; 
But at the first crack of the rifle, 

He galloped away to the rear. 
With his pipes, his tobacco and whiskey, 

And his barrels of sour lager beer, 
And he never let up on his running 

Till the Long Bridge appeared to his view. 
Where he opened up shop in his wagon. 

And "roped in" the gay " Boys in Blue." 
How he held to his faith unseduced, 

With the glint of the cash in his eye; 
And for this great cause how he suffered! 

For the cash, not the country, he'd die! 
Then rear to the Sutler a temple, 

Of granite and brass that will stay. 
Where the spirit of Shylock shall hover. 

And beam on the " Blue and the Gray," 



50 Beautiful Washington. 

That once paid a tribute to genius, 
With a gall that no mortal could rule, 

And a smile like a lightning-rod peddler, 
And a cheek like the Grand Army mule! 



GEORGETOWN HEIGHTS. 

A couple of miles up the Potomac 
from the Long Bridge, near the head 
of Analostan Island, you behold the 
so-called Aqueduct Bridge and the 
classical Georgetown University, its 
sky and star-kissing towers looming 
up like another group of castles on 
the romantic Rhine. 

The bridge once carried along its 
creaking and crumbling timbers the 
turbid waters of the Chesapeake and 
Ohio Canal, conceived and encour- 
aged by General Washington for the 
purpose of intermarrying the trick- 
ling rills of the Ohio River with the 
mountain brooks of the Potomac — 



Beautiful Washington. 51 

That leaps and roars and glides and pours 
Its waves o'er rocks and lea; 

And through the bay, so far away, 
Is tossed into the sea. 

Georgetown College was estab- 
lished by Bishop John Carroll, cousin 
of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, 
in the year 1789, and has been ever 
since successfully carried on by the 
Jesuit fathers, brave and faithful fol- 
lowers of St. Ignatius Loyola, Las 
Cassas, Marquette, and De Shmitt, 
and were among the earliest pioneers 
of religious and material civilization 
in this Western Hemisphere. They 
have left their footprints and their 
names indelibly impressed on the 
mountains, lakes, streams, and cities 
of this giant Republic. 

The greatest good to the greatest 
number, and the largest liberty for 
all, was their motto. 



52 Beautiful Washington. 

Freedom for all to worship God ! 

Should be our country's pride; 
I care not how you kneel or pray — 

For man, our Saviour died. 

CABIN JOHN BRIDGE — GREAT FALLS. 

Continuing up the Potomac we see 
pine-clad cliffs throwing their ghostly 
shadows over the storm-scarred rocks 
and troubled waters of the Little 
Falls and Chain Bridge. 

Close to the southern end of this 
bridge Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and 
John Randolph, of Virginia, fought a 
duel in 1826. Randolph at the first 
fire sent a bullet through the dress 
coat of Mr. Clay, when the seconds 
interfered and insisted on a truce. 
Courtesies were finally exchanged, 
when Clay jocularly remarked: **Mr. 
Randolph, you owe me a new coat." 
The satirical and eloquent Virginian 
replied: /'Mr. Clay, I shall be de- 



Beautiftd Washington. $3 

lighted to give you an order on my 
tailor for a new suit." 

Thus did statesmen settle affairs of 
honor in those chivalric days, but 
not always with such happy results. 
The Cilly and Graves, Barron and 
Decatur, and many Bladensburg 
duels closed with blood and death. 
The code, at least, made people par- 
ticular about giving insults. 

We may now take the electric train 
along the Palisades of the Potomac 
to Glen Echo, a festive and musical 
resort, where — 

"Joy leaps on faster with a louder laugh, 
And sorrow tosses to the sea his staff; 
Then pushes back the hair from his dim 

eyes 
To look entrancedupon our shining skies !' ' 

Cabin John Bridge, a mile away, 
spans a brawling creek, and carries 
over its granite shoulders the great 



54 Beautiful Washington. 

volume of water that supplies Wash- 
ington and its three hundred thou- 
sand people. 

The bridge and conduit were built 
by General Meigs of the Regular 
Army, under the administrations of 
Pierce, Buchanan, and Lincoln, cost- 
ing up to date nearly five millions of 
dollars. It is the longest single stone 
arch in the world — 220 feet long and 
100 feet high from the center of the 
creek. 

Standing beneath the lofty arch, 
in the month of June, with the wild 
flowers in bloom, the birds building 
nests and singing to their mates, and 
the warm sunshine glinting among the 
emerald hills and the soft south wind 
sporting with zephyrs among the 
palpitating leaves of the forest, lovers 
of nature and her gracious God may 
gaze entranced upon the summer 
scene. 



Beautiful Washington. 55 

Echo, the wood nymph, also plays 
her sportive and fantastic part, for, 
under the northwest end of the grace- 
ful span, sweethearts and gallants, 
youth and old age, may talk to 
each other in whisper or organ tone, 
and receive in return — "measure for 
measure." The traveler can get a 
volume of ''back talk;" and, my 
friends, that's where the ladies have 
no natural advantage over us "poor," 
"downtrodden," "humble," so-called 
"Lord's of Creation." 

Seven miles to the northwest we 
suddenly come upon the roaring 
waters of the Great Falls and a long 
granite dam, that turns the rushing 
Potomac aside into the head of the 
brick tunnel, nine feet in diameter 
and sixteen miles to Washington. 

The eternal voice of the falls sounds 
in the lingering ear like the wizard 



56 Beautiful Washington. 

wail of Time. Day and night, through 
countless ages, this incessant chorus 
has no ending. Rains, snows, storms, 
and lightnings have beaten and 
lashed these rugged rocks and foam- 
tossed waves. Grand and sublime 
are the works of the Creator ! 

I hear in the voice of the thunder, 
The glory and greatness of God; 

I see in the flash of the lightning 
The sweep of his glittering rod. 

I feel in the rush of the rain, 
The flow of His melting tears; 

And I hear in the midnight winds 
The music of all the spheres. 

I see in the limitless ocean, 

The swell of His heaving breast, 

And long for the hour when I shall sink 
To His bosom of infinite rest! 

ARCHITECTURAL BEAUTIES. 

A closer view of Washington will 
fascinate the traveler with its rare 



Beautiful Washington. 57 

sights, and strongly impress him with 
the progress and patriotism of our 
young RepubHc ; and, wonderful to 
say, there are living to-day men and 
women who were present at its birth. 
Grouped along and around Penn- 
sylvania avenue are a number of in- 
teresting objects to the tourist from 
foreign lands, and even local citizens 
should endeavor to see and know the 
rare things that lie at their doors, un- 
noticed and unappreciated. Strange 
to say, how ignorant we are of the 
beauties and romantic scenes of our 
own country while running after the 
gaudy and glittering sights of the Old 
World. We, of course, cannot boast 
of templed ruins, six thousand years 
old, dedicated to Isis and Osiris, 
crumbling, ivied mantled palaces and 
pyramids erected by slaves, as homes 
and tombs to the memory of for- 
gotten kings. 



58 Beautiful Washington. 

No! but we can point to the lofti- 
est stone monument on the globe, 
five hundred and fifty-five feet high, 
raised by freemen to the memory of 
General George Washington, whose 
name shines out to-day and shall 
shine adown the ages with a luster that 
time cannot dim nor tyrants destroy. 

The corner-stone of this grand 
monument was laid in the hearts of 
the American people ; its shining mar- 
ble face is typical of their purity and 
patriotism, and its bright aluminum 
cap, courting the radiant sunbeams 
and mystic moonbeams of Jehovah, 
is the symbol of their celestial aspira- 
tion ! A bird's-eye view from the top 
of this great stone shaft, with Wash- 
ington and the rolling hills of Mary- 
land and Virginia shining at your 
feet, with the serpentine Potomac 
flowing by its base, is well worth a 
trip from any part of Europe. 



Beautiful Washington. 59 

Poetry — the sigh and song of the 
soul; Music — the essence of the Di- 
vine; Sculpture — breathing thought 
in marble and bronze, and Painting, 
purity of ideal on canvas, finds a 
hearty reception and earnest wel- 
come in this land of Law and Liberty. 

The new Corcoran Art Gallery is 
the classic resting place and mauso- 
leum of ideals, evolved and fashioned 
by the soul of genius — a poem in 
pure white marble. 

Millions yet unborn will visit the 
columned corridors of this gallery, 
and get inspiration for a better and 
higher life from the dumb, though 
speaking memorials that artists have 
left behind in marble, bronze, and 
pictured poetry. 



6o Beautiful Washington, 

CHARLOTTE CORDAY. 

Charlotte Corday, whose melan- 
choly face you see behind those prison 
bars, is one of the most sought for 
memorials in the gallery. The self- 
sacrificing, heroic act of this beauti- 
ful country girl, appeals to the heart 
of mankind; and so long as love of 
liberty finds lodgment in the soul, 
her honored name and daring deed 
will be fondly remembered. Al- 
though poor, she was descended from 
a noble family. The French Revolu- 
tion, with its untold horrors and 
dying groans, echoed over the vine- 
clad hills of France and rebounded 
among the crags of the Pyrenees, 
where this young girl heard its fear- 
ful wail. Her father and friends had 
been arrested, thrown into prison, or 
sent unceremoniously to the guillo- 



Beautiful Washington. 6i 

tine. She belonged to the liberty- 
loving Girondists and hated the mon- 
strosities of the jacobins, led by 
Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. In 
the silence of her own soul she con- 
ceived and determined to rid the 
world of Marat, a tyrant and fiend 
incarnate. He had been known be- 
fore the Revolution as a quack doctor, 
a blackmailing, scurrilous newspaper 
fellow, and a thief! This glorious 
girl, after days and weeks of hunger 
and toil, arrived in Paris, and after 
several efforts, found the tyrant in 
his bath-tub. 

She presented a petition for the 
release and pardon of her father and 
friends, and received the reply : '' To- 
morrow they shall go to the guillo- 
tine, and 200,000 more shall follow 
in their pathway!" Hearing this, 
she immediately plucked from her 



62 Beautiful Washington. 

gown a concealed dagger and plunged 
it through the tyrant's heart, who 
gave one wild shriek and died like a 
poisoned rat! 

Thus perished that devil incarnate 
on the 13th of July, 1793. Four 
days after, the Revolutionary Tri- 
bunal sent her to the guillotine. 
Her last words to her confessor were — 
*' I killed a tyrant, and I'm proud of 
my act! " 

NAPOLEON AND C^SAR. 

Behold Napoleon sitting in marble 
contemplation looking over a map of 
the world, figuring, no doubt, how to 
rob, ruin, and murder mankind for 
his inordinate and insane ambition. 
''Such a consistency and inconsis- 
tency were never united in the same 
man." "A professed Catholic, he 
imprisoned the Pope; a pretending 



Beautiful Washington. 63 

patriot, he impoverished the country, 
and in the name of Brutus he grap- 
pled without remorse and wore with- 
out shame the diadem of the Cassars." 
He w^as the incarnation of egotism! 
The king's charity scholar from Corsica 
became the enemy of his benefactors. 
He was naturally mean and mathe- 
matical, daring and cowardly, as 
shown by his bold attack and flight 
from Waterloo, and his murder of 
three thousand Arab prisoners in 
Egypt. Instead of perishing with 
his Old Guard, on the field of slaugh- 
ter, he fled like a poltroon to Paris, 
and was immediately forced to ab- 
dicate his imperial crown, and, in fear 
of his own people, sneakingly ran 
away and surrendered to a British sea 
captain, and was swept over the 
ocean to die a broken-hearted exile 
on the barren rocks of St. Helena. 



64 Beautiful Washington. 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth ere 
gave. 
Await alike, the inevitable hour — 

The paths of glory lead but to the 
grave!" 

Julius Caesar, born July 12, one 
hundred years before the birth of 
Christ, surpassed in military genius 
Pompey and Crassus. His assassina- 
tion by his illegitimate son Brutus 
and sixty other Senators, was the 
acme of ingratitude and cowardice. 
During the career of this wonderful 
man, poet, orator, warrior, historian, 
and statesman, the conquering eagles 
of Rome swept like a cyclone over 
the romantic crags of the Appenines, 
the hot sands of Egypt, the vales and 
mountains of Spain, the isles of 
Greece, the plains of Gaul, the Black 
Forest of Germany, and over the sea 
to Britain and Ireland. 



Beautiful Washington. 65 

Then, as if wheeling in a circle of 
victorious grandeur, he crossed the 
Rubicon, in defiance of a jealous 
Senate, and entered Rome, with his 
battle-scarred legions, to perish at 
last by the hands of cowardly con- 
spirators. 

He was of a noble and kingly pres- 
ence, standing more than six feet, 
slender and pale, with prominent 
nose, large flashing black eyes, bald 
head, wearing no beard. He had 
marvelous versatility, and excelled in 
everything he undertook, and died 
at the age of fifty-six. 

The divine Shakespeare singles 
him out of the human race as the 
greatest mortal of all ages. Listen 
to his sententious encomiums pro- 
nounced by his friend and compeer, 
Marcus Antonius: 



66 Beautiful Washington. 

" O Mighty Cassar! dost thou lie so low? 
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, 

spoils. 
Shrunk to this little measure? 
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
That ever lived in the tide of times. . . . 
But yesterday, the word of Caesar might 
Have stood against the world; now lies he 

there. 
And none so poor to do him reverence!" 

WAR DEPARTMENT. 

Emerging from the east door of the 
gallery, guarded by two bronze lions, 
we look across the street and see the 
imposing State, War, and Navy 
Department rearing its bright gran- 
ite columns, six stories high, into the 
glaring sunlight. The War Depart- 
ment was first established in 1789; 
and when the Government archives 
were removed to Washington in 
1800, a brick building was erected. 

In 1 88 1 this grand structure was 



Beautiful Washington. 67 

erected to accommodate three De- 
partments; and the stone columns 
of the old building were removed to 
Arlington Cemetery and set up as 
memorial gateways to that beautiful 
home of the dead. This building is 
four hundred and seventy-one feet 
long, two hundred and forty feet 
wide, and two hundred feet high. 

At the old site, on the northeast 
comer, Jefferson Davis once sat as 
Secretary of War, under the admin- 
istration of Franklin Pierce. After- 
wards his name became world-wide 
and notorious as the President of the 
Southern Confederacy. 

Stanton, his former Democratic 
friend, became his successor as Secre- 
tary of War under the administra- 
tion of the immortal Lincoln. For a 
period of four years of battle and 
blood Stanton struggled against re- 



68 Beautiful Washington. 

bellion with inveterate desperation, 
and with the aid of Grant and his sol- 
diers throttled and choked it to death 
and tumbled its fabric into the crim- 
son waters of the Appomattox ! 

WHITE HOUSE — PRESIDENTS. 

The White House, or Executive 
Mansion, immediately to the east of 
the War Department, is an object of 
great interest to travelers from for- 
eign lands, and a never-failing source 
of joy and pride to every American. 
Thousands of strangers visit and view 
the building every week in the year, 
and every American school boy is 
taught to believe that he may occupy 
it as President of the United States, 
if, like George Washington, he is truly 
good and never told a lie ! 

Many of our Presidents came from 
the common people ; and we have had 



Beautiful Washington. 69 

very few aristocrats, and even those 
were not like Royal Bluffers. 

Jackson was a poor orphan boy and 
Indian fighter; Polk was rocked in 
a sugar- trough cradle; Taylor, "Old 
Rough and Ready," was a farmer's 
boy; Lincoln was a rail-splitter and 
boatman; Johnson was a tailor; 
Grant was a tanner; Garfield was a 
roustabout canal boy, and McKinley 
was raised on a farm and enlisted as a 
private soldier. Roosevelt had the 
advantage of wealth, education, and 
ambition. 

All our Presidents have been men 
of veracity. The promises they give 
before election, they keep after elec- 
tion — in cold storage! Put absolute 
trust in man when he is a corpse. 

The White House was the first Gov- 
ernment building put up in Washing- 
ton. The comer-stone was laid, with 



70 Beautiful Washington. 

Masonic honors, on the 13th of Octo- 
ber, 1792. James Hoban, a bright 
young Irishman, was the architect. 
He planned the building almost ex- 
actly after the beautiful palace of the 
Duke of Leinster at Dublin, and 
Washington himself inspected and 
superintended its erection. After 
much financial trouble, the sandstone 
building was finished and occupied in 
the winter of 1799, a few days before 
the death of Washington. It cost a 
quarter of a million of dollars — a big 
sum for the young Republic to pay 
for the home of its Executive. The 
satirists of the day called it the 
"President's Palace." Washington, 
who really originated its expansive 
halls and rooms, looked far ahead. 
Even after a lapse of a hundred years 
it looks well and fills its purpose to- 
day. We are proud of it anyhow. 



Beautiful Washington. 71 

because it has sheltered some of the 
greatest men that ever lived on the 
earth. 

On the 24th of August, 1814, after 
the battle of Bladensburg, our good 
friends, the British soldiers, set fire to 
the building, after eating a very fine 
dinner that the beautiful *' Dolly" 
Madison had prepared for a large 
number of invited guests. For some 
reason the "redcoats" fled precipi- 
tately, and, strange to say a heavy, 
providential fall of rain poured down 
and extinguished the fire. 

The house was afterwards repaired. 
President Madison and his "Darling 
Dolly" living temporarily in the Oc- 
tagon House, or Tayloe Mansion, still 
standing, as you may see, on the 
corner of Eighteenth street and New 
York avenue. 

The East Room is the largest and 



72 Beautiful Washington. 

finest in the White House, being 
eighty feet long and forty feet wide. 
Many grand receptions have been 
held here. Emperors, Kings, Queens, 
Princes, Dukes, Lords, Earls, States- 
men, Warriors, Orators, Painters, 
Sculptors, Musicians, and Poets, of 
world-wide renown, have trod these 
halls, embelHshed with all the gay and 
brilliant hues of pomp and glory. 

I have enjoyed some rapturous 
moments circulating under its grand 
chandeliers, with the pictures of 
Washington and his good wife Martha 
beaming, in lifelike pleasure, on the 
shifting scene. 

Youth, beauty, gallantry and love 
enhanced the fleeting hour, while Pro- 
fessor Sousa and the Marine Band 
rendered mellifluous airs. 



Beautiful Washington. 73 

" A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when 

Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spoke 

again, 

And all went merry as a marriage bell!" 

Yes, I truly felt there the philoso- 
phy of my own verse : 

Laugh, and the world laughs with you! 

Weep, and you weep alone! 
This grand old earth must borrow its mirth; 

It has troubles enough of its own! 
Sing, and the hills will answer; 

Sigh, it is lost on the air; 
The echoes bound to a joyful sound, 

But shrink from voicing care. 

Be glad, and your friends are many; 

Be sad and you lose them all. 
There are none to decline your nectared 
wine, 

But alone we must drink life's gall. 
There's room in the halls of pleasure 

For a long and a lordly train, 
But one by one we must all file on 

Through the narrow aisles of pain. 



74 Beautiful Washington. 

Feast, and your halls are crowded; 

Fast and the world goes by; 
Succeed and give, t'will help you to live, 

But no one can help you to die. 
Rejoice, and men will seek you, 

Grieve, and they turn and go; 
They want full measure of all your pleasure, 

Bvit they do not want your woe. 

STATUES — ^JACKSON, LAFAYETTE. 

The angles, circles, squares, and 
parks of the Capital are numerous^ 
and among its most attractive adorn- 
ments. There is no city in the world 
that excels Washington for its broad 
streets and long avenues. Viewed 
from the dome of the Capitol, through 
the soft airs and warm sunshine of 
leafy June, the "City of magnificent 
distances," with its steeples, towers, 
and lofty mansions, looks like a cluster 
of rubies and opals enmeshed in an 
emerald setting — brilliant as the varie- 
gated gems in a jeweler's window. 



Beautiful Washington. 75 

Lafayette Square, across Pennsyl- 
vania avenue from the White House, 
is a broad open space, embellished 
with rare flowers and evergreens, 
shrubs, pines and old elms, shading 
bronze statues of illustrious heroes. 

The equestrian statue of General 
Andrew Jackson, posed on a rearing 
bronze horse, is a sight to behold ! I 
have been on horseback in actual war 
myself, but I have never had an ani- 
mal "cavort" with me in that im 
pulsive fashion! Surrounding the 
base of the statue are four weather- 
beaten cannons that were captured 
at the battle of New Orleans from the 
British General Packenham, who was 
killed in that memorable battle. It 
was the greatest fight in history for 
the number and kind of troops en- 
gaged. A few thousand Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and Louisiana "bush- 



76 Beautiful Washington. 

whackers, " " hunters, ' ' ' ' farmers, ' ' 
and ''storekeepers," killed and 
wounded more than two thousand 
lordly "redcoats." They had been 
with Wellington on the "Continent," 
and at the imperial battle of Water- 
loo! And yet, " Old Hickory" Jack- 
son, an Irishman's son, humbled the 
pride of the British lion, and tore from 
its staff the "Union Jack" and the 
"Cross of St. George," trampling the 
colors of monarchy into the swamps 
of Louisiana! 

The statue of Marquis de Lafayette 
and his compeers, presented to the 
United States by France, adorns the 
southeast corner of Lafayette Square, 
originally named in honor of the illus- 
trious general. The Government 
placed it on a pedestal of granite in 
sight of the White House, where he 
was entertained in 1824 by President 
Monroe. 



Beautiful Washington. 77 

The name of Lafayette shall never die; 
'Twill shine as bright as stars in arctic sky; 
And Freedom shall his glorious deeds illume 
Resplendent o'er the darkness of the tomb! 

The statue of Rochambeau, on the 
southwest corner, is a splendid speci- 
men of the heroic warrior. 

See the Thomas statue, with Luther 
in the background. 

TREASURY AND PATENT OFFICE. 

The Treasury Department, nearby, 
is an object of great interest, par- 
ticularly to bondholders ! The people 
manage to get along with a few 
"greenbacks" and ** silver certifi- 
cates," while the national banks 
have a way of helping themselves. 
Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice and 
War Secretary of the Treasury was 
the father of the "greenback," that 
conquered the rebellion. 

Alexander Hamilton, bom in the 
West Indies, of Scotch and French 



78 Beautiful Washington. 

parents, was the first Secretary of the 
Treasur}^ He was the greatest in- 
tellectual manipulator of the Revolu- 
tionary War, the pioneer of the Con- 
stitution, and the Jupiter of American 
finance. Daniel Webster says of this 
great man, who was murdered by 
Aaron Burr: 

*'He smote the rock of national 
resources and abundant streams of 
revenue gushed forth! He touched 
the dead corpse of public credit and 
it sprang to its feet ! ' ' 

Would that some power might send 
us to-day another Hamilton! But, 
alas! most of our modern statesmen 
seem but grasshopper politicians buz- 
zing and chirping only for their per- 
sonal ambition — pork people in power. 

The Patent Office is the most per- 
fect public building in Washington. 
Its massive Doric marble columns and 



BeaiitiJMl Washington. 79 

full length windows are broad gauge, 
and fashioned after the classic masters 
of Grecian architecture. The inven- 
tions of american genius exhibited 
within its lofty halls, dazzle the be- 
holder, and no nation in the world but 
France excels us in the number of pat- 
ents annually allowed . In electricity , 
steam, air, and mechanics we outrival 
any nation on the globe, and the day 
is nigh when our inventors and sa- 
vants will solve the problem of the 
flying machine. I firmly believe that 
before the end of the twentieth cen- 
tury we shall master the navigation 
of the air. The idea that a crow, or 
condor, with blood, bones, flesh and 
feathers, can outdo lordly man, the 
image of his Creator, is preposterous. 
My friends, we will not tolerate such 
an idea, and if some Yankee don't 
invent a practical flying machine, I'll 



So Beautiful Washington. 

try and make one myself, even if I 
have to straddle Pegasus! 

See the Government Printing Office 
— the largest in the world. 

THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 

The Free Public Library of Wash- 
ington, donated by Andrew Carnegie, 
is built of pure white marble and 
of Grecian architecture. President 
Roosevelt, Commissioner Macfarland, 
and Mr. Carnegie made eloquent 
speeches on the dedication of the in- 
stitution, and I contributed the fol- 
lowing poetic spray to the laurel 
wreath of victorious education : 

Temple of Knowledge, pure and white. 
Shine on in beauty, day and night, 
The young and old, from sun to sun, 
Who come and go from Washington, 
Shall here find food without a stain, 
To nourish every working brain, 
That wish to write a lasting name 
Upon the templed towers of fame. 



Beautiful Washington. 8i 

Diffuse thy light adown the ages, 
Where Hope and Love on golden pages 
Shall teach this truth in every clime and soil 
"That those who think must govern those 

who toil." 
And to Carnegie shall great glory spring. 
For. to the people, he is more than king; 
A man who builds upon the God-like plan. 
Believing in the "royalty of man!" 

ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. 

Only a block away from the Patent 
Office, on Tenth street, we behold 
Ford's Theater, where Wilkes Booth, 
the crazy actor, assassinated Abraham 
Lincoln, President of the United 
States, on the night of the 14th of 
April, 1865 — five days after the sur- 
render of Lee at Appomattox. 

Across the street you behold the 
house where "Honest Old Abe" 
breathed his last, at seven o'clock 
the next morning, surrounded by his 
Cabinet and sorrowing friends. 



82 Beautiful Washington. 

Though Hberty, justice, and truth 
have often been nailed to the cross, 
they have always had a resurrection 
day. 

Those who die for liberty become 
famous on earth and immortal in 
heaven. The centuries are filled with 
men and women of heroic mold, 
but the lofty characters of Christ, 
Socrates, Galileo, Columbus, Roland, 
Emmet, John Brown, and Lincoln 
are eternal in their self-sacrifice and 
martyrdom for truth. 

Onward moves the crowding ages 
Like a flood of golden pages, 
Filled with treasures of the mind 
And liberty for all mankind! 

The assassination of this great man 
sent a shock through the hearts of 
mankind, as if a universal earthquake 
had rocked the firm foundation of the 
world. 



Beautiful Washington. S^ 

The nations went in mourning for 
his loss, and the crape of sorrow, Hke a 
lowering cloud, darkened every heart. 
From the headwaters of the Columbia 
to the limpid rills of the Indus and 
from the mountain falls of the Ama- 
zon to the crags and peaks of the 
Danube, one universal sigh broke on 
the breeze and reverberated in the 
heavy hearts of his own fellow-citi- 
zens. He was very dear to all the 
Union soldiers, because he w^as our 
"Commander and Chief," and we 
fondly called him " Father Abraham." 

Rooted firmly and deeply in the 
rifted rocks of time shall be his temple 
of everlasting glory. The mountains 
of America, lifting their heads unto 
the boundless blue, and the murmur- 
ing rivers of the continent shall min- 
gle forever with his fame, but the 
noblest monument to his memory 



84 Beautiful Washington. 

are the four million shackles struck 
from the galling limbs of the bonds- 
men. 

The example of the immortal Lin- 
coln shall continue to bless the human 
race until, crowned with the diadem 
of Liberty, we shall acknowledge the 
image of God in all men and pluck 
from the calendar of our hearts the 
demon of caste and persecution ! 

So long as liberty endures, 
His deathless name shall be 

A beacon light for every soul 
That struggles to be free! 

GRAND REVIEW — A CONQUERING ARMY. 

A few weeks after the death of this 
pure patriot a mighty procession took 
place in Washington. The grand re- 
view of the Army of the United States 
in celebration of its blood-bought vic- 
tories. Although Lincoln was not 



Beautiful Washington. 85 

permitted to behold this vast multi- 
tude of soldiers and citizens, he knew 
that the God of battles had given vic- 
tory to the Union, and like Moses of 
old, he saw the glory of the "Prom- 
ised Land" before his eyes closed on 
earthly scenes. 

On the 23d of May, 1861, the Union 
Army crossed the Potomac into Vir- 
ginia to subdue and conquer the Re- 
bellion, and exactly four years later, 
after a terrible war, unparalleled in 
modern times, the soldiers of the 
Union who had saved the nation 
from disintegration and ruin marched 
in triumph through the Capital, amid 
the reverberating shouts of multitudes. 

Cavalry, infantry, artillery, and 
engineers marched in company front 
from the heights of Capitol Hill to 
the heights of Georgetown. From 
sunrise on the 23d of May to sunset 



86 Beautiful Washington. 

on the 24th these battle-scarred war- 
riors, more than two hundred thou- 
sand, tramped along Pennsylvania 
avenue, in dusty and faded uniforms, 
with tattered flags waving in the 
breeze above shining bayonets, and 
all keeping step to the music of the 
Union. 

President Johnson, Secretary Stan- 
ton, General Grant, the hero of Ap- 
pomattox, and many noted states- 
men occupied the reviewing stand 
in front of the White House. And 
as General Meade and his Army of 
the Potomac rounded the corner of 
Pennsylvania avenue and Fifteenth 
street, one universal shout was sent 
up into the air, and echoed and re- 
echoed until his invincible columns 
passed the reviewing stand. The 
second day was more than a repetition 
of the first ; and when General William 



Beaiitiftd Washington. 87 

Tecumseh Sherman appeared at the 
head of his unconquerable "Bum- 
mers," with Logan, Blair, and Slo- 
cum as his loyal lieutenants, the mul- 
titude seemed to have lost their 
heads, and a pandemonium of pleas- 
ure reigned in the hearts of all true 
and loyal Americans. 

Look at those bronzed-faced vet- 
erans, in torn hats, coats, breeches, 
and tattered shoes, carrying dented 
canteens, bulging haversacks, sttiffed 
knapsacks, cackling chickens, squeal- 
ing pigs, and followed by crying goats 
and braying donkeys, and you may 
get some idea of "Sherman's Bum- 
mers." I was one of them myself — 
and, in fact, I haven't got entirely 
over the disease yet! 

But, remember, when your laugh 
and curiosity are over, that those 
were the boys that captured Buckner 



88 Beautiful Washington. 

at Fort Donelson, killed and routed 
Johnston's army at Shiloh, defeated 
and scattered Bragg' s army at Stone 
River, Chicka manga, Missionary 
Ridge, and Lookout Mountain, and 
finally put to flight Johnston, Long- 
street, and Hood at Knoxville, Re- 
saca, New Hope, Kenesaw Mountain, 
Atlanta, Franklin, Nashville, until 
"Uncle Billy's Bummers" marched 
through the heart of the Confederacy 
and planted "Old Glory" over the 
broken wrecks of the rebellion down 
by the sounding sea. 

"So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom 
and her train, 
Sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to 

the main; 
Treason fled before us, for resistance was 

in vain — 
While we were marching through Georgia!" 



Beautiful Washington. 89 

GENERAL JUBAL A. EARLY ALARMED 
WASHINGTON. 

The glorious joy of the people of 
Washington at the "Grand Review" 
was a great contrast to their conster- 
nation when General Jubal Early, 
in the fall of sixty- three, threatened 
the Capital with his raiding lines of 
"gray." From the amphitheater of 
hills to the north, he beheld the 
dome of the Capitol and the steeples 
and towers of the city. 

The men who sleep at the National 
Cemetery, near Fort Stevens, on the 
Seventh street road, could once tell 
the story. Convalescent hospital sol- 
diers. Department clerks, storekeep- 
ers, and mechanics held the rebels in 
check for twenty-four hours. But 
when the Sixth Army Corps came in 
sight, with General Wright at its head, 



90 Beautiful Washington. 

he immediately deployed his skir- 
mishers to the front, and followed 
them up with column after column 
of weather and battlefield soldiers, 
who made quick work of Early and 
his raiders, driving them from the 
field in a few hours, never to appear 
before Washington again. President 
Lincoln witnessed the fight. 

It is stated, as a fact, that if Gen- 
eral Early had not stopped at Silver 
Springs, the home of old Francis 
Blair, to drink of its sparkling waters, 
embellished with "Kentucky trim- 
mings," he might have captured 
Washington. 

What "might have been" never 
found a place in my philosophy. 
The eternal now is all of life. It's no 
use talking or wailing about the past. 
All successful rebels are patriots. All 
defeated rebels are traitors. Sue- 



Beautiful Washington. 91 

cess and might make right. Does it? 
No ! For right is right, and wrong is 
wrong forever. 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. 

The Smithsonian Institute, with its 
sandstone turrets, towers and gables, 
is a gift to the United States by James 
Smithson, an English philanthropist 
and scholar. It is dedicated to sci- 
ence, progress, and the diffusion of 
knowledge, and has been the pioneer 
and supporter of many colleges and 
universities. 

Professor Joseph Henry, whom I 
had the honor of knowing, one of the 
fathers of magnetism and electricity, 
was for many years Superintendent 
of the Institution. His bronze statue 
adorns the grounds to-day, while his 
remains rest under the shadows of 



92 Beautiful Washington. 

Oak Hill. He was a peculiar man, 
and some people called him "a crank," 
because he tethered and pastured an 
alderney cow on the public lawn in 
sight of his office window, to make 
sure of getting unadulterated milk. 
But the eagle heeds not the chirp of 
the sparrow, or croak of the vulture, 
and sails right on through its own 
shining, starlit realm. 

How true! "The shallows mur- 
mur, while the depths are dumb." 
Those who love the study of orni- 
thology, and wish to while away the 
hours with the beautiful feathered 
tribe, can here behold rare specimens 
artistically arranged in glass cases. 

The irridescent colors of the hum- 
ming bird and bird of Paradise, the 
drab gray colors of the auk, eagle, 
condor, and wild turkey, with their 
variety of colored eggs, can be seen 
here in rich profusion. 



Beautiful Washington. 93 

And the National Museum, a re- 
cent adjunct, is largely overcrowded 
with the rarest specimens of natural, 
artificial, and scientific relics and me- 
morials. It is a great object-lesson 
for the rising generation, and school 
children should often visit this re- 
pository of rare and interesting sights. 

Behold the Halls of the Ancients, 
on New York avenue. 

BOTANICAL GARDEN. 

The Botanical Garden, ten acres 
in extent, at the west end of the Capi- 
tol grounds, on Pennsylvania avenue, 
was virtually established about the 
time the Government archives were 
removed from Philadelphia, a hundred 
years ago. It is devoted to the propa- 
gation of rare plants, flowers, and 
trees, and can produce those from 
any land on the globe. Many speci- 
mens are exchanged for those of the 



94 Beautiful Washington. 

royal gardens of Europe, and the few 
gardens of London are represented 
here. 

Mr. WilHam R. Smith, and his 
Scotch colHe, in front, both of Cale- 
donian lineage, have presided over the 
garden for forty-five years. I mean 
Smith, not the dog, although he 
takes as much interest in the flowers 
and visitors as the superintendent. 
The dog is poetically inclined, and 
can bark in the language of Bobby 
Burns, the patron saint of Mr. Smith, 
who boasts of his rare collection of 
Burns' s works. Carnegie, the librar}^ 
builder, is chummy with Smith. 

In the background of this picture 
you see the great Bartholdi fountain 
that was exhibited by the French 
Government at the Philadelphia Cen- 
tennial, and looming over all you see 
the great glass greenhouse contain- 
ing the rarest floral productions. 



Beautiful Washington. 95 

Senators, Representatives, Cabinet 
ministers, their wives and daughters, 
receive many floral tributes from this 
garden, and thousands of dollars have 
been spent by Uncle Sam to teach 
his nephews and nieces how to culti- 
vate rare plants and beautiful flow- 
ers, bright-eyed emblems of the Cre- 
ator. The money is well spent, and I 
trust each succeeding year greater 
appropriations may be made for 
the propagation and enlargement of 
these perfumed beauties. "A thing 
of beauty is a joy forever." 

The progress and glory of a nation 
is known by its cultivation of beauti- 
ful things and grand ideals. For, 
after all, the ideal is the real' 

Music is in the soul of the musician 
before it springs from the lute or the 
Steinway piano; color and form are 
in the painter's mind before brushed 



g6 Beautiful Washington. 

onto canvas ; the God-like form is in 
the heart of the sculptor before it ap- 
pears in marble and bronze, and the 
sweet songs and sublime periods of 
the poet thrill his fevered brain before 
flashed upon an admiring world. 

POST-OFFICE AND PENSION OFFICE. 

The Washington City Post-Office on 
Pennsylvania avenue is a gray granite 
building of lofty proportions. It 
covers a whole square, is eight stories 
high, with a pointed roof and square 
tower 365 feet from the pavement to 
the pinnacle. 

There is a great clock in the tower, 
with illuminated dials, at the cardinal 
points fifteen feet in diameter. The 
minute-hand is eleven feet long, and 
the hour six feet six inches. The Ro- 
man numerals are twenty-six inches, 



Beautiful Washington. 97 

and, taking the great " town clock" 
all in all, it is the finest in the United 
States. 

The office has as good facilities for 
the entrance and exit of mail matter 
with light and ventilation as any in 
the world. Like the Washington 
Monument, National Library, and 
Capitol, the great City Post-Office is 
one of the most prominent objects of 
Washington, seen for many miles 
around under the mellow moonbeams 
or shimmering sunlight. The site 
and structure of this building cost 
three millions and a quarter of dollars 
ana has forty acres of floor area. 

The Pension Office, the largest brick 
building in the world, employs three 
thousand clerks in adjusting and pay- 
ing the biggest pension roll in the 
world, for the largest triumphant 
army of modern times. 



9 8 Beautiful Washington. 

The great building is used for the 
purpose of inaugural balls, where the 
new President and thousands of his 
friends shine in resplendent glory, and 
gorgeous banners, golden mottoes, 
and enchanting music thrill the hearts 
and souls of brave men and fair 
women. 

General M. C. Meigs, Quartermaster 
General of the United States, and en- 
gineer, was the architect of the Pen- 
sion building. This loyal, honest 
Army officer disbursed during the late 
rebellion the sum of three billions of 
dollars and accounted for every cent. 
He rests from his labors under the oak 
shadows of Arlington, and as long as 
the murmuring Potomac at its feet 
glides onward to the sounding sea, 
Meigs and his soldier comrades shall 
be gratefully remembered by a liberty- 
loving people. 



Beautiful Washington. 99 

PRIVATE MANSIONS. 

There are many fine private man- 
sions in Washington, with spacious 
halls bordered with onyx and marble 
staircases, with mahogany and rose- 
wood balusters, and lofty golden gilt 
parlors, bearing on their walls oil 
paintings and pictured tapestries from 
the hands of old masters. Fifty 
thousand dollars would not purchase 
some of these art treasures. 

Among the large number of costly 
and artistic buildings may be seen 
Henderson castle, at the head of Flor- 
ida avenue and Sixteenth street, over- 
looking the Capitol, from whose 
towers, on a clear day, the woodland 
heights of Mount Vernon, twenty 
miles away, may be distinguished by 
the traveler. 

Ex-Senator John B. Henderson, of 

L.cfC. 



100 Beautiful Washington. 

Missouri, is the fortunate owner, and, 
with his charming wife and son, enter- 
tains lavishly. He is a national poli- 
tician, a daring diplomat, a noted 
financier, an able lawyer, and a gen- 
erous patron of belles lettres, art, and 
science. 

The Sherman mansion, opposite 
Franklin Park, is built of gray rock, as 
solid and true as the bold Secretary 
of the Treasury, who resumed specie 
payment in the face of chronic grow- 
lers and financial fakirs, who forever 
prophesy ill and do nothing ! 

On the north side of Lafayette Park 
you behold the home of John Hay, 
the author of ''Little Breeches," 
*'Jim Bludsoe," private secretary of 
President Lincoln, and Ambassador 
to England. He was once a poor 
newspaper Bohemian, and, like 
Whitelaw Reid, late Ambassador to 



Beautiful Washington. loi 

France, married a fortune. But his 
money and political power will soon 
pass away, and be lost and forgotten 
like the sparkling dews of morning, 
when the rich philosophy of "Ji^ 
Bludsoe" will carry the name of the 
Poet Hay down the circling years. 

"Hewar'nt no Saint, but at Judgment day 

I'd stand my chance with 'Jim;' 
Alongside 'er some pious 'Gent' 

That wouldn't shook hands with him. 
For he saw his duty clar, 

And he done it thar and then; 
And Christ aint a goin' to be too hard 

On a man what died for men!" 

There are a number of business 
buildings in Washington devoted to 
banking, trade, and merchandise, and 
while the Capital is not a city of great 
firms or manufacturing establish- 
ments, there is no good reason why 
the waters of Rock Creek and the falls 
of the Potomac should not be har- 



102 Beautiful Washington. 

nessed to electric machinery that 
would light and heat the National 
Capital as well as turn the mill wheels 
of great manufacturing structures. 

The Washington Loan and Trust 
Company building is a fine symmet- 
rical granite and iron structure, oc- 
cupied by the best business men of 
the city. Its first floor is devoted 
to banking, and contains large safe 
deposit vaults with untold wealth 
within its lockers. 

John Joy Edson, of the institution, 
in conjunction with B. H. Warner 
and others, have been the main props 
in its organization. They are self- 
made, typical business men, and an 
honor to any community. 

The new Western Union Telegraph 
building is a landmark of practical 
progress, having a connection with 
twenty-five thousand miles of wire, 



Beautiful Washington. 103 

five ocean cables, and a telegraph 
transfer money system that reaches 
around the civilized world. 

The Baltimore Sun building is a 
ten-story brick, stone, and iron 
foundation, filled with various pro- 
fessional people, its three upper 
stories being used as offices for the 
Interstate Commerce Commission. Its 
tapering tower is a center point of 
Washington, and from its windows 
can be seen the variegated hues of the 
Capitol, nestling in a sea of emerald 
foliage at its base. 

The Washington Star newspaper 
building is one of the finest offices 
in the nation, ten stories high, built 
of white marble. 

THE STAR. 

Twinkle, twinkle, Evening Star! 
It's no wonder that you are 
Far above the world so high — 
Marble poem in the sky! 



I04 Beautiful Washington. 

For through all your growing years, 
With the people's smiles or tears, 
You have sympathized and wrought 
In the noblest, loftiest thought. 

The Washington Post building, 
constructed of gray rock from the 
Buckeye State, is one of the most 
prominent buildings on Pennsylvania 
avenue, sheltering newspaper cor- 
respondents of distant cities and the 
Associated Press. 

See the great New Willard Hotel. 

The Boston Dry Goods House, on 
F street, is a point of constant in- 
terest to the passing tourist, male or 
female. From four to five o'clock of 
a sunny afternoon, when the pigeon- 
hole people of the various Depart- 
ments or clerical galley slaves es- 
cape from their official sweat-boxes, 
and airs, not from Araby the blessed, 
mingle with the universal run of 
human fish that wiggle, squirm, 



Beautiful Washington. 105 

glide, and dart along this highway of 
Vanity Fair. The moving mass is 
certainly a sight to the contempla- 
tive beholder, who has eyes to see, 
ears to hear, and heart and brain to 
feel. 

WASHINGTON VANITY FAIR. 

Ethnologically speaking, Washing- 
ton can show in the winter season a 
variety of humanity seldom seen 
elsewhere. 

See the tall Texan and cavalier 
Kentuckian jostle against the quick- 
step man from Michigan and Massa- 
chusetts. The Creole from New Or- 
leans crowds the corporation counsel 
from New York. The listless man 
from the everglades of Florida cir- 
cles around the independent Cali- 
fomian. The rushing hustler from 
Colorado and Kansas elbows the 



io6 Beautiful Washington. 

pride of Old Virginia, and the Hoosier 
from the Black Jack prairies and 
sycamore bottoms of Indiana bumps 
against the Buckeye from the '' United 
States of Ohio," who holds an elastic 
mortgage on political power and 
claims a fee simple on the earth. 

Then pepper this moving throng of 
Americans with the Italian dago, the 
cruel and swarthy Spaniard, the fan- 
tastic Frenchman, the stolid Ger- 
man, the arrogant EngHshman, the 
wild-eyed, mercurial Irishman, the 
canny Scotchman, the smart dressed- 
up Jap, the moon-faced Chinaman, 
the bell-crowned Korean, the tur- 
banned Turk, the fur-faced Russian, 
the lonely, lingering Indian, the 
emancipated negro, the sharp and 
everlasting Jew — and you have a 
kaleidoscopic view of peripatetic hu- 
manity rarely seen on the face of the 
globe. 



Beautiful Washington. 107 

And to make the scene more en- 
hancing and thrilUng, you hear the 
rush and roar of electric cars and 
the rumble of shining carriages swept 
along by bobtail bays, among dodg- 
ing bicycle riders and automobiles, 
all moving over smooth asphaltum 
pavements that extend for one hun- 
dred and ten miles, running over 
three hundred and sixty-six miles 
of sewers, ranging from two to 
twenty-two feet in diameter, large 
enough to drive through with a farm 
hay wagon. 

Washington is a city of severe 
contrasts. You may behold any day 
in the week the ramshackle shanty of 
the Caucasian or colored citizen stand- 
ing beside the mansion of the million- 
aire, and the creaking cart of the rag- 
picker rolling along beside the costly 
carriage and royal outfit of foreign 



io8 Beautiful Washington. 

diplomats. There is less toadyism 
among the business and independent 
people of Washington than any class 
of citizens in the United States. 
They give no flattery or genuflec- 
tions to official functionaries from the 
backwoods, who accidentally or other- 
wise come to Congress, and even 
periodical President's and Cabinet 
clerks are not sought after by solid 
citizens, and are only great for a 
short season, in their own estimation, 
or the shining sycophants who follow 
in their social or official trail. 

Washingtonians know how hollow, 
insincere, and ephemeral are all the 
blandishments of official life, and 
pass them by with supercilious in- 
difference, or studied contempt. 



Beautiful Washington. 109 

CURIOUS AND NOTED PEOPLE. 

For more than thirty-five years I 
have known many curious, notori- 
ous, and famous people about the 
National Capital. 

Beau Hickman, a kind of Beau 
Nash or Beau Brummel, lingered 
around the city as a sport and genteel 
"dead beat," claiming to be one of 
the F. F. V.'s — a fellow of stale jests, 
who lived on his wits, pandering to 
the vanity and credulity of the pass- 
ing throng — a cast-off garment of 
rural gentility. 

See *'Col." Pinch over, the railroad 
"inventor." 

Billy McGarrahan, the genial and 
jolly Irishman, died a short time 
ago of a broken heart, after trying 
for nearly forty years to get back the 
ranch and quicksilver mine that was 
filched from him by a California 
corporation. 



no Beautiful Washington. 

But the celebrated "McGarrahan 
claim" is only one of the vast number 
that have been on the calendar of 
Congress and the Departments for a 
number of years. Poverty-stricken 
heirs have struggled in vain, genera- 
tion after generation, to induce the 
Government to liquidate its honest 
obligations. If the individual would 
act the part of a bluffer and official 
robber, as the Government does 
through its pampered officers, bank- 
ruptcy or the prison would be its 
portion. 

The progress of great cities has 
been advanced and pushed forward 
by bold or brilliant men. Pericles 
and Phidias pushed Athens up to the 
highest pinnacle of art and power, 
with the classical Parthenon shining 
as a crown of architectural glory, 
while Alcibiades and Aspasia reigned 
as fashion monarchs of the hour. 



Beautiful Washington. iii 

Paris, with its crooked streets, 
dens of poverty and iniquity, was 
straightened out into great avenues, 
open parks, spacious sewers, and im- 
mense water works by the daring 
Baron Haussmann, architect for Louis 
Napoleon. 

And Washington City, the Paris of 
America, was taken from a cobble- 
stone, straggling town, filled with 
dust and garbage, and built up out 
of the mud of ignorance and slavery 
and placed in the concrete of freedom, 
by that other Baron Haussmann, 
Alexander R. Shepherd, whose bronze 
monument will soon decorate one of 
the most extensive parks of the Capi- 
tal. 

There is one character that has 
lingered around Washington for a 
hundred years, more or less, and he is 
a consolidated individual known as 



112 Beautiful Washington. 

the ''office-seeker," "office-holder," 
and "office-loser," who, as you may- 
observe, has arrived at the last stage 
of the game. A Texas blizzard seems 
to have visited the retired statesman. 
He is one of the "Ex's" that can be 
found out without an X-ray, and 
this is his parting soliloquy: 

Yesterday, I was a seeker for office and 

glory and cash; 
To-day I'm a "holder" and settled and dine 

upon fresh turkey hash. 
Yesterday, I climbed the ladder the people 

put up for my cheer — 
To-day I'm a big bloated bladder — 
And drawing five thousand a year. 
To-morrow, then, I am forgotten, and off for 

the wild woolly West, 
To feel like an outcast that's rotten — 
Or a cuckoo without any nest! 

NATIONAL LIBRARY. 

The diffusion of knowledge and 
the education of the people is the best 



Beautiful Washington. 113 

guarantee of the perpetuity of the 
nation. 

Adversity is the common school of 
philosophy, and prosperit}^ the uni- 
versity of wisdom, while grand archi- 
tectural beauty elevates the soul into 
the realms of sublimity. 

From the invention of letters and 
hieroglyphics by the Babylonians and 
Egyptians to the pen parchments of 
Greece and Rome and the type print- 
ing of Germany, there has never been 
such a magnificent structure erected 
for the reception and repository of 
letters and books as that recently 
completed by the United States. 

A thousand years hence, Mac- 
aulay's traveler from New Zealand, 
after sketching the ruins of St. Paul 
from the broken arches of London 
Bridge, may take his aerial flight west- 
ward over the roaring billows of old 



114 Beautiful Washington. 

ocean, with the speed of a wild pigeon 
and, resting for a moment on the 
aluminum pinnacle of the Washing- 
ton Monument, sketch the granite 
columns and golden dome of the Na- 
tional Library, still towering into the 
sunlight of freedom and shining with- 
pristine glory over a Republic of five 
hundred millions of independent 
Americans. 

There it stands, a mausoleum for the 
general sheaves of genius; a beacon 
light of hope and love, where the poet, 
musician, painter, and sculptor clasp 
hands with science and religion, 
irradiating the world with their lofty 
thoughts in books and bronze. 

Washington City is the national 
granary for books; and from all the 
fields in the world it daily, weekly, 
and yearly gleans sheaves and stacks 
of thought that is mounting to an 
Olympus of universal knowledge. 



Beautiful Washington. 115 

The people of Washington are the 
most omniverous thinkers and readers 
in the country; and there are more 
private, club, school, society, frater- 
nal, and public places where books of 
all kinds can be found than any other 
city in this Republic. 

Advantage for education, both 
theoretical and through noted object- 
lessons, are greater here than else- 
where, and it is considered a privilege 
by the citizens of the various States of 
the Union to live in the intellectual 
and social atmosphere of the Capital. 

This building is the largest, safest, 
and most costly library in the world, 
constructed of granite, marble, onyx, 
brick, terra-cotta, steel, iron, and 
glass, lit by two thousand windows, 
and absolutely fireproof. 

It is four hundred and seventy feet 
long, three hundred and forty feet 



ii6 Beautiful Washington. 

wide, and two hundred feet high to 
the tip of the golden torch that illumes 
its crest. 

More than four hundred thousand 
cubic feet of granite, twenty- three 
millions of brick, four thousand tons 
of steel and iron, and a hundred thou- 
sand barrels of cement were used in 
the construction of this grand Pan- 
theon of ideals. It cost about seven 
millions of dollars. 

The colossal fountain, with the sea 
god Neptune and his court, strikes 
the eye of the beholder when first he 
views the west front, and the main 
entrance pavilion, with its flowing 
granite steps, lamps, columns, and 
statues, is unequaled on the globe. 

There is the grand staircase, beau- 
tiful, artistic, and lofty, with the lamps 
of genius illuminating the footsteps 
of the traveler, while the great octag- 



Beautiful Washington. 117 

onal reading-room, sixty feet high, 
with statues of great thinkers crowning 
its rim and artistic paintings bright- 
ening its concave dome. 

Every school boy and girl and 
teacher in the Republic should view 
and contemplate this poem in stone, 
once in their lives; and when age 
comes on they should speak of its 
beauty and glory to their children 
and children's children, teaching 
them — 

That Truth and Beauty never die, 
But like the star-lit radiant sky, 
They shine resplendent o'er the wave 
And gild the gloom that wraps the grave. 

FIRST VIEW OF WASHINGTON. 

One cold, drizzling evening in No- 
vember, 1866, I viewed for the first 
time the straggling outskirts of Wash- 
ington, with the great white dome of 



ii8 Beautiful Washington. 

the Capitol beating back the whirhng 
clouds of a gloomy sunset. 

Arriving at the ramshackle Balti- 
more and Ohio depot, on New Jersey 
avenue, under the very shadow of the 
Halls of Congress, where it still dis- 
figures and disgraces the city, I made 
my way to Pennsylvania avenue 
along First to Second street over a rus- 
tic wooden bridge spanning the slug- 
gish Tiber or Goose Creek, putting up 
for the night at the old Washington 
House, a noted resort for Congress- 
men and Indians. 

The new Union depot, with its 
approaches, costing five millions of 
dollars, will be one of the greatest pas- 
senger terminals in the world. It is 
seven hundred feet long, two hundred 
feet wide, and fifty feet high, present- 
ing an architectural front as imposing 
as the classic structures of Ionian Isles . 



Beautiful Washington. 119 

When all the railroads and coal 
mines of the nation are consolidated, 
purchased, and operated by the Gov- 
ernment, the day of strikes and riots 
will be at an end, and the people will 
be the common and preferred stock- 
holders in all our commercial traffic. 

Broken macadam and cobble-stones 
constituted the street equipment, and 
board planks and rough bricks were 
used for foot pavements. Loaded 
wagons drawn by mules often sank in 
the mud to the hubs on Pennsylvania 
avenue. Seventh, and Fourteenth 
streets, while hogs, cattle, goats, 
geese, ducks, buzzards, and vagrant 
dogs acted as scavengers for the city. 
These animals seemed to constitute 
themselves into a board of health, as 
it were, not finally relieved until 1871, 
when Senators, Representatives, and 
Executive awoke to the fact that this 



I20 Beautiful Washington. 

was a civilized age and this city the 
Capital of the great Republic. 

Soon after, Governor Alexander R. 
vShepherd, with a competent Board of 
Health and Board of Public Works, 
began the real foundation of the new 
Washington, and ever since the au- 
thorities of the Capital have been 
working out the grand plan made by 
Major L' Enfant, who first surveyed, 
under the eye of George Washington, 
the City of Magnificent Distances. 

I remember muddy Tiber Creek, 
running across Second street, through 
the Government propagating garden, 
Missouri Park, Smithsonian Grounds, 
Agricultural and Monument lots, 
along B street to Nineteenth, where it 
flowed in lazy ripples, smelling in 
summer and freezing in winter, where 
the small boy, black and white, swam 
and skated as the season permitted. 



Beautiful Washington. 121 

Those were 'happy, bhssful, igno- 
rant days for the citizens of Wash- 
ington, who were just rubbing their 
astonished eyes and waking up out of 
the Rip Van Winkle sleep of slavery. 

The blue coats of the North, like 
the blue birds of the forest, brought 
in the spring of life and progress in 
their train, and began to build up the 
waste places of the South, so fearfully 
ravaged by the terrible hands of 
fratricidal war. 

At that time, 1866, Washington 
City and Georgetown looked more like 
the wreck of a military and hospital 
camp than a stately city. Its hills, 
vales, and houses had been scarred 
and thrilled with the passing tramp 
of a conquering army, and the sur- 
rounding country bordering on the 
Potomac and Anacostia presented 
a network of rifle pits, redoubts, and 



122 Beautiful Washington. 

forts, some of the bold red crests still 
battling with the rains, snows, and 
suns of forty years. 

These scars of war remain long on 
the bosom of mother earth, like the 
scars of defeat linger in the mind of 
an old soldier ; yet Time, with its heal- 
ing balm, smooths away the wounds 
of memory and wrinkles of regret, 
lifting the soul to a higher plane, 
where the songs of the victor and the 
vanquished may mingle in harmonious 
chorus over the eternal establishment 
of Union and liberty for all man- 
kind. 

The northwest part of Washington 
has improved with wonderful rapidity, 
and will continue its onward prog- 
ress as long as the rolling hills of 
Georgetown and Rock Creek look 
down upon the shining spires, tem- 
ples, and mansions of the Capital. 



Beautiful Washington. 123 

I have seen domestic beasts of all 
kinds feeding on the grass and gar- 
bage clumped about the sites of the 
British Legation, Blaine, Leiter, Pat- 
terson, and Walsh mansions, and I 
have warmed myself in the midnight 
hours on my way to Georgetown by 
the roaring and flashing fires of 
brick kilns along P street and Massa- 
chusetts avenue, where the Blaine and 
Walsh mansions now stand. The 
head of Eighteenth and Nineteenth 
streets, abutting on Florida avenue, 
was the site of the old Holmead Ceme- 
tery. Little do the sleepers in those 
aristocratic brick blocks and flats 
know that they are living over a 
graveyard. Yet the whole earth 
is nothing but the cold and silent 
tomb of man, and those alive to-day 
on its rushing surface are not a 
handful to the millions that rest 
within its capacious bosom. 



124 Beautiful Washington. 

In the winter of 1867 and 1868 
the citizens of the Capital had great 
fun skating on Babcock Lake from 
Fifteenth to Nineteenth streets, 
through the lower end of the White 
Lot and Monument Grounds, on to 
the glassy surface of the winding 
Potomac. The freeze lasted several 
weeks, and a "rink" was erected 
where the boys and girls of the 
city skated day and night, their 
pathway lit by the light of Luna, 
whose pale rays shone on love's 
vows and kisses to the ring and 
clink of merry revelers. Who can 
forget those bright, flitting, passionate 
hours — 

When hearts beat warmly on that icy shore, 
Alas ! long vanished to the Nevermore ! 

Romantic Rock Creek, from the 
location of the Zoo and Lyon's Mills 



Beautiful Washington. 125 

on to the mouth of the Potomac, 
was filled with jolly skaters. 

Where love and laughter thrilled the scene, 
And life was rushing, brave and keen ; 
When leaping blood through every vein 
Destroyed the pangs of earthly pain. 

Washington is yet in its boyhood. 
One hundred years from now it 
will contain two millions of inhabit- 
ants, and the United States be popu- 
lated with two hundred millions of 
free citizens. 

The Great Falls of the Potomac 
will be harnessed to mammoth 
electric dynamos that will generate 
sufficient power to light the city 
and run the wheels of great factories 
and mills that will line the rolling 
hills of the Potomac on to tidewater, 
Alexandria, and the Chesapeake Bay. 

Lordly millionaire mansions will 
top each knoll and hill around the 
circling rim of the Capital. ^^ 



126 Beautiful Washington. 

Art and science will find its choicest 
home in the "City of magnificent 
distances," and genius, with its tire- 
less brain, will come from all lands 
and climes, nestling at last under 
the glinting glory of the Goddess of 
Liberty. 4 

The patrons o^ poetry, music, 
painting, and sculpture will find its 
greatest encouragement in this mod- 
ern Athens of the Occident, and will 
"some day" surpass the boasted 
productions of oriental grandeur. 
Washington is destined to be the most 
picturesque city in the world, and 
while Babylon, Rome, and Constan- 
tinople boast of their vanished glory 
and classic heroes, young America, in 
his strenuous strides of architectirral 
and electric progress, will outstrip the 
loftiest dreams of antiquity. 

Transportation by pneumatic tubes 



Beautiful Washington. 127 

and flying machines will soon be re- 
solved to practical utility; and we 
will wonder at the slow progress of 
our fathers who, in their ignorance, 
were content with the creeping rail- 
road trains of to-day! 

It is preposterous to think and 
acknowledge that the pigeon, duck, 
crow, and bustard, that wing the 
upper ocean of air, have more brains 
and knowledge than man! No! we 
shall soon have electric buggies, 
cars, and trains, filled with human 
freight, flying over the tallest moim- 
tainsand stormiest seas, and in our 
criscross sky sailing we may meet 
the inhabitants of old Luna or 
red Mars, who will lead us to the 
shining worlds beyond this sphere, 
where life and love are eternal ! 

The decline, decay, and danger of 
future Washington, following the 



128 Beautiful Washington. 

role of the rich and illustrious capi- 
tals of antiquity, will be found in its 
sordid greed, purse-proud folly, lux- 
urious display and military tyranny, 
where the heart and soul are sacri- 
ficed for the pence, pounds, and dol- 
lars of Mammon. Then poetry, mu- 
sic, painting, and sculpture will take 
flight to other lands, where purity 
and virtue can find a congenial, 
happy, and honest home. 

We bloom and rise but to decay, 
And then like leaves we pass away, 
While other hearts and other hands 
Shall occupy our homes and lands. 

MONUMENT AND CAPITOL. 

The traveler from foreign or do- 
mestic lands approaching the City of 
Washington by stage, boat, or rail, 
whether from the foothills of the 
Blue Ridge, the rocky crags of the 



Beautiful Washington. 129 

Alleghenies, or the placid waters of 
the Potomac, beholds very often, 
when thirty of forty miles away, the 
pinnacle point of the Washington 
Monument, and the broad swelling 
dome of the National Capitol rearing 
its grand proportions three hundred 
and fifty feet above the Peace Monu- 
ment on Pennsylvania avenue into 
the shimmering sunshine of this 
glorious Republic. 

The rising sun of dewy morn gilds 
the Goddess of Liberty with his 
earliest beams, and as he sinks to 
rest over the Appalachian chain of 
mammoth mountains, bathes her 
form in a flame of mellow, golden 
light. 

Before the permanent establish- 
ment of the Capital at the beginning 
of this century, it was tossed about 
like a tramp or poor relation to nine 



130 Beautiful Washington. 

different cities, seeking "a local 
habitation and a name." 

The personal efforts of George 
Washington and Thomas Jefferson 
finally prevailed with Congress, and 
it found a lasting home on the vernal 
banks of the Potomac, where the 
North and South clasp hands in fra- 
ternal fellowship forever. 

The corner-stone of the old sand- 
stone Capitol was laid by Washington 
himself, with Masonic ceremonies, on 
the 1 8th of September, 1790; and 
the corner-stone of the new marble 
extension was laid by Millard Fill- 
more, with mystic rites, on the 4th of 
July, 1 85 1, and finished in the fall of 
1867. The following account is from 
an eyewitness reported in the Alex- 
andria Gazette: 



Beautiful Washington. 131 

ACCOUNT OF CEREMONY. 

" On Wednesday last one of the 
grandest processions took place 
which, perhaps, ever was exhibited 
on the like important occasion. 

''Abont 10 o'clock Lodge No. 9, 
Georgetown, and Lodge No. 22, 
Alexandria, with all their officers in 
regalia, appeared on the southern 
banks of the grand river Potomack. 
One of the finest companies of volun- 
teer artillery that has been lately 
seen paraded to receive the President 
of the United States, who shortly 
appeared in sight from Mount Ver- 
non, with his suite, to whom the 
artillery paid their military honors, 
and his excellency President Wash- 
ington and suite crossed the Potomack 
and was received in Maryland by 
the lodges, whom the President 



132 Beautiful Washington. 

headed, and preceded by a band of 
music, the rear, brought up by the 
Alexandria Volunteer Artillery, with 
grand solemnity of march, proceeded 
to the President's Square, in the city 
of Washington, where they were met 
and saluted by Lodge No. 15, of the 
city of Washington, in all their ele- 
gant regalia, headed by Brother 
Joseph Clark, Rt. W. G. M., P. T., 
and conducted to a large lodge pre- 
pared for the purpose of their recep- 
tion. 

" After a short space of time, by the 
vigilance of Brother C. W. Stephen- 
son, grand marshal P. T., the broth- 
erhood and other bodies were dis- 
posed in a second order of procession, 
which took place amid a brilliant 
crowd of spectators of both sexes ac- 
cording to the following arrange- 
ment: 



Beautiful Washington. 133 

" The Surveying Department of the City of 
Washington. 
Mayor and Corporation of Georgetown. 
Virginia Artillery. 
Commissioners of the City of Washington 
and their Attendants. 
Stone Cutters. 
Mechanics. 
Two Sword Bearers. 
Masons of the First Degree. 
Bibles, &c., on Grand Cushions. 
Deacons with their Staff of Ofhce. 
Masons of the Second Degree. 
Stewarts with Wands. 
Masons of the Third Degree. 
Wardens with their Truncheons. 
Secretaries with Tools of Office. 
Past Masters with their Regahas. 
Treasurers with their Jewels. 
Band of Music. 
Lodge 2 2 , of Virginia, Disposed in their Own 
Order. 
Corn, Wine, and Oil. 
Grand Master P. T., George Washington, 
W. M., No. 22, Virginia. 
Grand Sword Bearer. 

'The procession marched two abreast 
in the greatest solemn dignity, with 



134 Beautiful Washington. 

bands playing, drums beating, colors 
flying, and spectators rejoicing from 
the President's Square to the Capitol, 
in the City of Washington, where 
the grand marshal ordered a halt and 
directed each file in the procession to 
incline two steps, one to the right and 
one to the left, and face each other, 
which formed a hollow oblong square 
through which the grand sword- 
bearer led the van, followed by 
Grand Master P. T., on the left, 
the President of the United States 
in the center, and the Worshipful 
Master of No. 22, Virginia, on the 
right. All the other orders that com- 
posed the procession advanced in 
the reverse order of march from the 
President's Square to the southeast 
corner of the Capitol, and the artil- 
lery filed off to the destined ground to 
display their maneuvers and dis- 
charge their cannon. 



Beautiful Washington. 135 

'The President of the United States, 
the Grand Master P. T., and the 
Worshipful Master of No. 22, taking 
their stand to the east of a huge 
stone, and all the craft forming a 
circle westward stood a short time 
in silent, aweful order. 

" The artillery discharged a volley. 

" The Grand Master delivered the 
Commissioners a large silver plate 
with an inscription thereon, which 
the Commissioners ordered to be 
read, and was as follows : 

' ' The southeast corner-stone of the Capitol 
of the United States of America, in the City 
of Washington, was laid on the i8th day of 
September, 1793, in the thirteenth year of 
American Independence, in the first year of 
the second term of the Presidency of George 
Washington, whose virtues in the civil ad- 
ministration of his country have been as 
conspicuous and beneficent as his military 
valor and prudence have been useful in 
establishing her liberties, and in the year of 



1.36 Beautiful Washington. 

Masonry, 5793, by the Grand Lodge of 
Maryland, several lodges under its jurisdic- 
tion, and Lodge 22 from Alexandria. Va. 
THOMAS JOHNSON, 
DAVID STEWART, 
DANIEL CARROLL, 

Committee. 
JOSEPH CLARK, 

R. W. G. M., P. T. 
JAMES HOBAN, 
STEPHEN HALLETTE, 

Architects. 
COTTON WILLIAMSON, 

Master Mason. 

ARTILLERY HEARD. 

'^ The artillery discharged a volley. 

" The plate was then delivered to the 
President of the United States, who, 
attended by the Grand Master, P. T., 
and three most worshipful masters, 
descended to the Carvellon trench 
and deposited the plate and laid on 
it the corner-stone of the Capitol of 
the United States of America, on 



Beautiful Washington. 137 

which was deposited corn, wine, and 
oil, when the whole congregation 
joined in aweful prayer, which was 
succeeded by Masonic chanting hon- 
ors and a volley from the artillery. 

' * The President of the United States 
and his attendant brethren ascended 
from the Carvellon to the east of the 
comer-stone, and there the Grand 
Master, P. T., elevated on a triple 
rostrum, delivered the following ora- 
tion: 

" My Worthy Brethren: 

" I presume you expect I shall in some 
measure address you on this very important 
occasion, which, I confess, is a duty incum- 
bent on me, although quite inadequate to 
the task, and entirely unprepared, for until 
high meridian yesterday I was not solici- 
tous, neither had I a conception to have 
the performance of this duty. 

" Therefore, you will accept my observa- 
tions with brotherly love; they are, I assure 
you, sincere, and dictated by a pure Masonic 
heart, though very brief. 



138 Beautiful Washington. 

" Brothers, I beg leave to declare to you 
that I have, and I expect that you also have, 
every hope that the grand work we have 
done to-day will be handed down, as well 
by record as by oral tradition, to the latest 
posterity — as the like work of that ever- 
memorable temple to our order, erected by 
our ancient G. M., Solomon. 

'^ Twelve volleys of artillery punctu- 
ated the oration. 

^'The prayer was succeeded by Ma- 
sonic chanting, and a fifteenth vol- 
ley from the artillery. 

^' The whole company retired to an 
extensive booth on the Capitol 
grounds, where an ox of 500 pounds 
was barbacued, of which the com- 
pany generally partook, with every 
abundance of other refreshments. 
The festival concluded with fifteen 
successive volleys of artillery whose 
discipline and maneuvers merit every 
commendation. 



Beautiful Washington. 139 

" Before dark the whole company 
departed, with joyful hopes of the 
production of their labors." 

CONCLUSION — CAPITOL. 

One night in June, when the full 
round moon was bathing that vast 
dome in a flood of silver light, I 
sat with my sweetheart on that mar- 
ble Corinthian column you behold 
on the southeast comer of the Capi- 
tol. This was the last column hoisted 
into place, and I trust when our spir- 
its hover over this Republic a thou- 
sand years hence we shall still see 
this wilderness of angles, pilasters, 
and classic columns shining in the 
midday of freedom, in a land where 
liberty is law and union is eternal ! 

It would require a month of days 
and a genius for a guide to describe 
the beauty and grandeur of the 



140 Beautiful Washington. 

scrolls, stairs, halls, and wide and lofty 
rotunda of that magnificent struc- 
ture, the finest in the world. 

A thousand years that dome shall stand, 
Above a great, united land; 
Where Freedom rules from sea to sea 
And man is only majesty! 

That Glorious Flag shall ever wave, 
Above the Tyrant and his grave — 
And all the people proud and free 
Shall sing the songs of Liberty! 

Flash THE Flag in glinting glory 

To the sunlight and the breeze, 
While you hear its grand old story 

Over land and stormy seas. 
And you'll gather from its beauty 

The great lesson everywhere — 
That those who do their duty 

Are the heroes who will dare. 
It was born in blood of battle 

When the glorious, rising sun, 
Ushered in the musket's rattle 

On the field of Lexington, 
Where the "red coats" found a foeman, 

Who, alert on hill and gorge. 



Beautiful Washington. 141 

Would bow the knee to no man 

Nor the minions of King George. 
And Paul Jones of glorious memory, 

The great captain of the sea, 
From the masthead of Bonhomme 

Flew the flag for you and me. 
And captured the Serapis 

Upon the English shore, 
Defeating pirate tyrants 

On the seas forevermore. 
And we see it waving proudly 

Over Yorktown and the James, 
Where Washington so loudly 

With cannon voice proclaims, 
'Surrender, Cornwallis, 

With your raiding, robbing crew, 
And drink the bitter chalice 

To the 'red and white and blue.' " 
And again we see it flutter 

O'er the swamps of New Orleans, 
Where the wounded "red coats" mutter 

Round those bloody, deadly scenes. 
While brave Jackson with his yeomen 

On grounds so low and mucky 
Routed all the British foemen 

With his rifles from Kentucky. 
And far across the mountains 

Where the vine and cactus grow, 



142 Beautiful Washington. 

Amid dashing streams and fountains 

On the plains of Mexico, 
''Old Glory" and its heroes 

Swept the tyrant from his lair, 
Destroyed the cruel Neros 

That would chain the people there. 
And we shall all remember 

Until our dying day, 
The storms of wild December, 

Where the rushing Blue and Gray 
In deadly grapple battled 

Over river, vale and crag. 
Where cannon loudly rattled 

For the triumph of the flag. 
From Sumter unto Shiloh 

From Vicksburg to the sea ; 
From Gettysburg to Petersburg, 

With Meade and Grant and Lee. 
The flag, though torn and tattered, 

Unconquered still remains, 
Our Union still unshattered 

Where love and law still reigns. 
And over every ocean 

Has kept its right of way, 
Alive with brave emotion 

On to far Manila Bay. 
Where Dewey and his gunners 

Wiped out the tyrant stain — 



Beautiful Washington. 143 

Destroyed the naval runners 

And the prestige of old Spain. 
And up from Santiago 

We hear the glorious cry- 
Where Spanish Don and Dago 

Yield to men who do or die. 
And there in bloody battle, 

Beneath the tropic sky, 
The heroes of the action 

Were Wainwright, Clarke, and Schley. 
And the flag must still go forward 

Through many bloody scenes, 
To carry faith and freedom 

To the far-off Philippines, 
Where boys in blue are bearing 

"Old Glory" in the van — 
The pioneers of daring, 

For the libertv of man ! 



END. 



p^ 



